University  of  California. 

FROM    THK    l.IBKAR; 

.    FRANCIS     LIEBERj 

•rid  Law  in  Columbia  College.  -New  York. 


THK   GIFT   OF 


MICHAEL    REESE 

Of  San  2"'?  ••' 
1S73. 


LECTURES 


ON 


MODERN    HISTORY. 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURES 

ON 

MODERN  HISTORY, 

DELIVERED  IN  LENT  TERM,  MDCCCXLII. 

WITH 

THE    INAUGURAL    LECTURE 

DELIVERED  IN  DECEMBER,  MDCCCXLI. 

BY   THOMAS    ARNOLD,   D.  D . 

REGIUS    PROFESSOR    OF    MODERN    HISTORY    IN    THE    UNIVERSITY    OF    OXFORD. 
AND  HEAD  MASTER  OF  RUGBY  SCHOOL. 

EDITED, 
FROM  THE  SECOND  LONDON  EDITION, 

WITH  A  PREFACE  AND  NOTES, 
BY  HENRY  REED,  M.  A., 

PROFESSOR  OF  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 


NEW-YORK : 
D.    APPLETON    &    COMPANY, 

346    &    848    BEOADWAY. 
M.D(CC.LVII. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1845, 

BY  D.  APPLETON  &  CO., 

I»  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for  th* 
Southern  District  of  New  York. 


PREFACE 


TO 


THE  AMERICAN    EDITION 


IT  will  be  seen  from  Dr.  Arnold's  prefatory  note,  that  these  Lec- 
tures were  printed  almost  exactly  as  they  were  delivered  ;  the  date 
of  the  publication  showing  too  that  it  was  very  soon  after  the  de- 
livery of  them.  The  Lectures  are  altogether  of  an  introductory 
character,  and  it  was  the  humble  hope  of  the  author,  that  in  suc- 
ceeding years  he  would  be  enabled  to  devote  other  courses  to  the 
farther  examination  of  modern  history — the  subject  which  he  re- 
garded as  "  of  all  others  the  most  interesting,  inasmuch  as  it  in- 
cludes all  questions  of  the  deepest  interest,  relating  not  to  humar 
things  only,  but  to  divine."  The  last  lecture  in  this  volume  appears 
to  have  been  delivered  in  the  month  of  February,  1842,  and  it  was 
upon  the  12th  of  June  that  Dr.  Arnold's  sudden  death  took  place. 
The  hope  of  future  labors  in  modern  history  was  not  to  be  fulfilled, 
and,  in  the  words  of  his  biographer,  "  the  Introductory  Lectures 
were  to  be  invested  with  the  solemnity  of  being  the  last  words 
which  he  spoke  in  his  beloved  university." 

The  design  of  these  Lectures  cannot  be  better  described  than  by 
saying  that  they  were  intended  to  excite  a  greater  interest  in  the 
study  of  history.  Dr.  Arnold's  biographer  thus  speaks  of  them  : 

"  The  course  was  purely  and  in  every  sense  of  the  word  *  intro- 
ductory.' As  the  design  of  his  first  residence  in  Oxford  was  not  to 
gain  influence  over  the  place  so  much  as  to  familiarize  himself  with 
it  after  his  long  absence  ;  so  the  object  of  his  first  lectures  was  not 
so  much  to  impart  any  historical  knowledge,  as  to  state  his  own 
views  of  history,  and  to  excite  an  interest  in  the  study  of  it.  The 

1* 


6  PREFACE  TO  THE 

Inaugural  Lecture  was  a  definition  of  history  in  general,  and  of 
modern  history  in  particular  ;  the  eight  following  lectuies  were  the 
natural  expansion  of  this  definition  ;  and  the  statement  of  such 
leading  difficulties  as  he  conceived  a  student  would  meet  in  the 
study  first  of  the  external  life,  and  then  of  the  internal  life  of 
nations.  They  were  also  strictly  '  lectures ;'  it  is  not  an  author 
and  his  readers,  but  the  professor  and  his  hearers,  that  are  brought 
before  us.  Throughout  the  course,  but  especially  in  its  various 
digressions,  is  to  be  discerned  his  usual  anxiety — in  this  case 
almost  as  with  a  prophetic  foreboding — to  deliver  his  testimony  be- 
fore it  was  too  late,  on  the  subjects  next  his  heart ;  which  often 
imparts  to  them  at  once  the  defect  and  the  interest  of  the  out- 
pouring of  his  natural  conversation." 

Of  the  spirit  in  which  he  should  lecture  with  respect  to  the  feel- 
ings of  the  place,  Dr.  Arnold  remarks,  in  one  of  his  letters,  "  The 
best  rule,  it  seems  to  me,  is  to  lecture  exactly  as  I  should  write  for 
the  world  at  large ;  to  lecture,  that  is,  neither  hostilely  nor  cau- 
tiously, not  seeking  occasions  of  shocking  men's  favorite  opinions, 
yet  neither  in  any  way  humouring  them,  or  declining  to  speak  tho 
truth,  however  opposed  it  may  be  to  them." 

While  the  text  of  these  Lectures  is  with  scrupulous  fidelity  pre 
served  exactly  as  they  were  uttered  and  printed,  it  has  seemed  to 
me  that  their  interest  and  value  might  be  increased  by  the  introduc- 
tion of  some  illustrative  notes.  There  would  indeed  have  been 
little  need  of  any  thing  of  the  kind,  had  Arnold's  life  been  prolonged 
till  his  professorial  labors  were  completed ;  but  considering  that 
these  Lectures  have  been  left  to  us  as  introductory  to  unaccom- 
plished after-courses,  and  that  a  lecturer  is  always  under  the  neces- 
sity of  bringing  his  subject  in  each  lecture  within  narrow  limits  of 
time,  I  have  thought  that  it  was  an  occasion  on  which  the  addition 
of  editorial  notes  would  not  be  inappropriate.  This  thought  was 
perhaps  first  suggested  to  my  mind  by  the  knowledge  that  Dr 
Arnold's  other  works  furnished  passages  which  might  be  brought 
into  fit  connection  with  the  Lectures,  and  the  belief  that  on  farther 
examination  with  this  special  object  in  view,  I  should  be  able  to 
find  more.  My  first  and  chief  aim,  therefore,  in  the  notes  I  have 
introduced  in  this  edition,  has  been  to  collect  such  parallel  passages 
as  would  explain  and  illustrate  the  opinions  and  feelings  which  arts 


AMERICAN    EDITION.  7 

presented,  either  by  direct,  statement  or  brief  intimation,  in  the 
Lectures. 

I  have  not  however  confined  the  notes  to  selections  from  Dr. 
Ainold's  writings,  but  have  brought  them  from  various  sources,  as 
far  as  I  thought  they  would  contribute  to  historical  knowledge  and 
truth,  without  encumbering  the  volume.  It  will  readily  be  under- 
stood, that  in  lectures  as  copious  as  these  are  in  historical  and  bio- 
graphical allusions,  the  process  of  annotation  might  be  carried  on 
to  an  almost  indefinite  extent,  but  I  have  endeavored  to  limit  the 
notes  in  a  great  measure  to  such  as  are  of  that  suggestive  character 
for  which  the  Lectures  themselves  are  distinguished — such  as 
might  encourage  a  love  for  the  study  of  history  and  prompt  to  his- 
torical reading.  In  no  department  of  literature  has  there  been 
greater  advance  than  in  historical  science  during  about  the  last 
twenty  years,  and  it  is  a  branch  of  education  well  deserving  atten- 
tion, as  one  of  the  means  of  chastening  that  narrow  and  spurious 
nationality  which  is  no  more  than  unsubstantial  national  vanity — 
the  substitute  of  ignorance  and  arrogance  for  genuine  and  rational 
and  dutiful  patriotism. 

In  preparing  this  edition,  I  have  had  in  view  its  use,  not  only  for 
the  general  reader,  but  also  as  a  text-book  in  education,  especially 
in  our  college  courses  of  study.  It  might  be  thought  that  this  last 
purpose  would  require  the  introduction  of  many  notes  of  an  explan- 
atory kind  for  the  information  of  young  students ;  but  from  such 
annotation  I  have  in  a  great  measure  forborne,  and  purposely,  for 
two  reasons — because  it  must  have  become  too  copious  in  a  work  so 
*ull  of  historical  allusions,  and  because  the  volume  can  be  an  appro- 
priate text-book  only  for  advanced  students,  who  have  completed  an 
elementary  course  of  history.  Besides,  it  is  my  belief  that  many  a 
text-book  is  now-a-days  overloaded  with  notes,  to  the  positive  in- 
jury of  education :  such  books  seem  to  be  prepared  upon  a  pre- 
sumption that  they  are  to  be  taught  by  men  who  are  either  ignorant 
or  indolent,  or  both,  and  thus  it  is  that  the  spirit  of  oral  instruction 
is  deadened  by  the  practice  of  anticipating  much  that  should  be  sup- 
plied by  the  teacher.  The  active  intercourse  between  the  mind 
that  teaches  and  the  minds  that  are  taught,  which  is  essential  to  all 
true  instruction,  is  often  rendered  dull  by  the  use  of  books  of  such 
description.  I  have  therefore  endeavored  to  make  the  notes  in  this 


PREFACE  TO  THE 

volume  chiefly  si  ggestive,  and  only  incidentally  explanatory,  and 
in  doing  so,  it  is  rry  belief  and  hope  that  I  have  followed  a  principle 
on  which  the  Lectures  themselves  were  written. 

The  introduction  of  this  work  as  a  text-book  I  regard  as  im- 
portant, because,  at  least  so  far  as  my  information  entitles  me  to 
speak,  there  is  no  book  better  calculated  to  inspire  an  interest  in 
historical  study.  That  it  has  this  power  over  the  minds  of  students 
I  can  say  from  experience,  which  enables  me  also  to  add,  that  I 
have  found  it  excellently  suited  to  a  course  of  college  instruction. 
By  intelligent  and  enterprising  members  of  a  class  especially,  it  is 
studied  as  a  text-book  with  zeal  and  animation. 

In  offering  thi?  volume  for  such  use,  I  am  not  unaware  of  the 
difficulties  arising  from  the  fact  that  our  college  courses  are  both 
limited  as  to  time  and  crowded  with  a  considerable  variety  of 
studies — often  perhaps  too  great  a  variety  for  sound  education. 
The  false  academic  ambition  of  making  a  display  of  many  subjects 
has  the  inevitable  effect  of  rendering  instruction  superficial  in  such 
studies  as  ought  to  be  cultivated  thoroughly.  I  should  be  sorry, 
therefore,  to  be  contributing  in  any  way  to  what  may  be  regarded 
as  an  evil  and  an  abuse — the  injurious  accumulation  of  subjects  of 
study  upon  a  course  that  is  limited  in  duration.  It  is  in  order  to 
avoid  this,  that  I  venture  here  to  suggest  an  expedient  by  which 
instruction  in  these  Lectures  may  be  accomplished  advantageously 
and  without  embarrassment  or  conflict  with  other  studies.  The 
student  may  be  made  well  acquainted  with  these  Lectures  by  the 
process  of  making  written  abstracts  of  them,  for  which  the  work  is, 
as  I  have  found,  peculiarly  adapted.  Let  me,  however,  fortify  this 
suggestion  by  something  far  more  valuable  than  my  own  opinion  or 
experience — the  authority  of  Dr.  Arnold  himself  as  to  the  value  of 
the  method.  It  \n  ill  be  found  in  his  correspondence  that  he  earnestly 
advises  the  making  of  an  abstract  of  some  standard  work  in  history : 
besides  the  information  gained,  "  the  abstract  itself,"  are  his  words, 
"  practises  you  in  condensing  and  giving  in  your  own  words  what 
another  has  said ;  a  habit  of  great  value,  as  it  forces  one  to  think 
about  it,  which  extracting  merely  does  not.  It  farther  gives  a 
brevity  zind  simplicity  to  your  language,  two  of  the  greatest  merits 
which  style  caji  have."  This  method  may,  it  appears  to  me,  be 
with  advantage  a  substitute,  to  a  considerable  extent,  for  whai 


AMERICAN    EDITION.  9 

is  commonly  called  "  original  composition"  of  young  writers.  It 
avoids  a  danger  which  in  that  process  has  probably  occurred  to  the 
minds  of  most  persons  who  have  had  experience  and  are  thought- 
fully engaged  in  that  branch  of  education.  The  danger  I  allude  to 
has  been  wisely  and  I  think  not  too  strongly  spoken  of  as  the  "  im- 
mense peril  of  introducing  dishonesty  into  a  pupil's  mind,  of  teach- 
ing him  to  utter  phrases  which  answer  to  nothing  that  is  actually 
within  him,  and  do  not  describe  any  thing  that  he  has  actually  seen 
»r  imagined."  (Lectures  on  National  Education,  by  the  Rev,  Prof, 
Maurice,  now  of  King's  College,  London,) 

A  few  words  may  be  added  here,  for  the  general  reader  as  well 
as  the  student.  In  order  to  receive  just  impressions  from  these 
Lectures  it  is  important  to  bear  in  mind  one  or  two  of  the  peculiarly 
prominent  traits  of  Dr.  Arnold's  intellectual,  or  rather  moral  charac- 
ter. The  zeal  to  combat  wrong — to  withstand  evil — engendered  a 
polemical  propensity,  which  leads  him  sometimes  to  speak  as  if  he 
saw  only  evil  in  what  may  be  mixed  good  and  evil.  His  view  of 
things,  therefore,  is  occasionally  both  true  and  false,  because  one- 
sided and  incomplete.  Of  chivalry,  for  instance,  his  mind  appears 
to  have  dwelt  only  or  chiefly  on  the  dark  side — the  evils  and  abuses 
of  it.  '  Conservatism'  was  to  him  a  symbol  of  evil,  because  he 
thought  of  it,  not  as  preserving  what  is  good,  but  a  spirit  of  resist- 
ance to  all  change. 

Arbitrary  power,  in  any  of  its  forms,  was  odious  to  the  mind  of 
Arnold,  not  simply  because  it  creates  restraint  and  subjection,  but 
inasmuch  as  it  retards  or  prevents  improvement  of  faculties  given 
to  be  improved.  "  Half  of  our  virtue,"  he  exclaims,  quoting  Ho- 
mer's lines  with  a  bold  version,  "  Half  of  our  virtue  is  torn  away 
when  a  man  becomes  a  slave,  and  the  other  half  goes  when  he 
becomes  a  slave  broke  loose."  The  solemn  and  impassioned 
utterance  of  the  great  living  poet,  whom  Arnold  knew  in  personal 
converse,  would  not  be  too  strong  to  express  the  feeling  with  which 
he  looked  upon  oppression  by  lawless  dominion  : 

"  Never  may  from  our  souls  one  truth  depart — 
That  an  accursed  thing  it  is  to  gaze 
On  prosperous  tyrants  with  a  dazzled  eye." 

Liberty  was  prized  by  Arnold,  not  for  its  own  sake — not  as  in  itself 


10  PREFACE    TO    THE 

a  good,  but  as  a  means — a  condition  of  cultivation  and  improvement, 
and  it  became  in  his  eyes  a  worthless  boon,  an  abused  privilege, 
whenever  not  dutifully  employed  for  the  good  of  man  and  die  glory 
of  God. 

Dr.  Arnold's  opinions  must  also  often  be  judged  of  in  their  rela- 
tive connection.  "  It  is  my  nature,"  he  says,  "  always  to  attack 
that  evil  which  seems  to  me  most  present."  Accordingly,  the  evil 
he  would  most  strenuously  condemn  in  one  place,  or  time,  or  state 
of  things,  might  elsewhere  cease  to  be  the  most  dangerous,  or  in- 
deed give  place  to  even  an  opposite  evil.  This  has  an  important 
bearing  upon  any  application  of  his  principles  or  opinions  to  various 
political  or  social  conditions  ;  but  be  the  thoughts  and  words  what 
they  may,  there  is  assurance  that  they  come  from  a  man  distin- 
guished for  that  straightforwardness  of  purpose  and  of  speech 
which  everywhere  and  always  is  a  virtue — 

lv  iravra  6e  vdftov  c{i06yXw<r<roj  <ii%  Trpoftpei, 

irapd  rvpavvlSi,  x<W(5rav  b  Aa/tyoj  ffrpar<Jf, 

%wrav  tr6\iv  ol  aofyol  rripliavn.  Pylh.  II. 

Having  spoken  of  applications  of  Dr.  Arnold's  thoughts,  I  wish 
to  add,  that  there  could  be  no  more  unworthy  tribute  rendered  to 
him  than  either  the  careless,  unreflecting  adoption  of  his  views,  or 
the  citing  his  words  as  a  sanction  for  opinions  that  may  in  other 
minds  be  no  more  than  prejudices — formed  in  ignorance  or  indif- 
ference, and  held  without  earnestness  or  candor.  Such  is  not  the 
lesson  to  be  learned  from  the  character  of  one  of  whom  I  may  say 
that  he  could  not  draw  a  happy  breath  in  the  presence  of  falsehood, 
and  the  master-passion  of  whose  spirit  was  the  love  of  Law  and  of 
Truth. 

In  the  arrangement  of  this  volume  for  the  press,  I  have  placed 
the  notes  of  this  edition  at  the  end  of  each  lecture,  so  that  they 
may  not  intrude  at  all  upon  the  text  of  the  lectures,  which  differ  in 
no  other  particular  from  the  original,  than  merely  the  insertion  of 
numbers  for  reference  to  the  notes,  and  a  correction  of  a  slight 
error  in  a  reference  to  an  authority  in  Lecture  VI.  To  prevent 
any  possibility  of  error,  let  it  be  understood  that  Dr.  Arnold's  own 
notes,  few  in  number,  are  printed  as  foot-notes,  as  in  the  original 
edition.  The  notes  of  this  edition  are  in  all  cases  referred  to  by 
numbers,  and  are  placed  after  each  lecture. 


AMERICAN    EDITION.  11 

For  several  valuable  suggestions  and  references,  I  am  indebted 
to  the  learning  and  the  kindness  of  the  Rev.  Professor  George 
Allen,  of  Delaware  College.  I  mention  my  obligation,  because 
otherwise  silence  would  bring  me  the  self-reproach  for  something 
like  unreal  display.  There  is  a  pleasure  too  in  making  such  an 
acknowledgment,  especially  when,  in  connection  with  this  volume, 
it  is  to  one  whose  earnest  scholarship  is  kindred  to  that  of  Arnold 
himself  in  several  respects,  and  chiefly  in  this — the  not  common 
combination  of  philological  accuracy  with  cultivation  of  modern 
history  and  literature. 

H.  R. 

UNIVERSITY  or  PENNSYLVANIA, 
PHILADELPHIA,  JlprV  28,  1845 


TO  THE  REVEREND 

EDWARD   HAWKINS,   D.  D  , 

PROVOST  OF  ORIEL  COLLEGE, 


ETC.,  ETC.,  ETC. 


THESE  LECTURES, 


THE    FIRST    FRDITS    OF   A    RENEWED    CONNEXION    WITH    THE    UNIVERBITT 
AND    ITS    RESIDENT    MEMBERS, 

ARE    INSCRIBED    WITH    TRUE    RESPECT    AND    REGARD, 

BY    HIS    SINCERELY    ATTACHED    FRIEND, 

THE  AUTHOR. 


THE  following  Lectures  are  printed  almost  exactly  as 
they  were  delivered.  They  were  written  with  the  ex- 
pectation that  they  would  be  read  in  a  room  to  a  very 
limited  audience ;  which  may  explain  why  the  style  in 
some  instances  is  more  colloquial  than  became  the  circum- 
stances under  which  they  were  delivered  actually. 

Rugby,  May  5th,  1842. 


CONTENTS. 


INAUGURAL  LECTURE. 

PAOI 

History  often  underrated. — It  cannot  be  appreciated  justly  at 
once. — Definition  of  history. — The  biography  of  a  society. 
— Properly,  the  biography  of  a  nation. — And  hence,  gene- 
rally, of  a  government. — But  not  always  so  in  reality. — A 
nation's  life  is  twofold,  partly  external  and  partly  internal.  / 
— The  internal  life  determined  by  its  end. — This  end  moral 
rather  than  physical. — Because  a  nation  is  a  sovereign 
society ;  and  must  therefore  be  cognizant  of  moral  ends ; 
as  it  controls  all  actions. — End  of  a  nation's  life,  its  highest 
happiness. — This  is  the  fruit  of  laws  and  institutions ;  which 
together  form  its  constitution;  executive,  legislative,  and 
judicial. — Institutions  for  public  instruction. — Institutions 
relating  to  property. — Their  great  importance. — Instances 
given :  primogeniture,  entails,  commercial  laws,  &c.— • 
Other  elements  affecting  national  life. — Conclusion:  the  — 
greatness  of  history. — What  constitutes  modern  history  1 — 
It  treats  of  nations  still  living. — When  was  the  English 
nation  born] — National  personality  depends  on  four  great 
elements. — Peculiarity  of  modern  history. — Its  element  of 
the  German  race. — Spread  of  this  race. — Is  modern  history 
the  last  history? — Why  it  seems  likely  to  be  so. — Impor- 
tance of  its  being  so. — Value  of  the  lessons  of  history.— 
Conclusion .  25 

[NOTES 51] 

2* 


18  CONTENTS. 


APPENDIX  TO  INAUGURAL  LECTURE. 

FAG  I 

Theory  of  the  perfect  state. — The  supreme  society  must  be 
moral. — Why  the  moral  theory  is  objected  to. — What 
should  be  the  bond  of  societies. — Union  of  action  rather 
than  of  belief. — When  is  government  national  ? — Govern- 
ment speaking  the  voice  of  the  nation  may  choose  its  own 
national  law. — Churches  may  infringe  individual  rights. — 
Excommunication  is  a  punishment. — All  centralization  has 
its  dangers. — Obedience  to  Christian  law  the  way  to  arrive 
at  Christian  faith. — But  the  end  is  not  to  be  made  the  be- 
ginning.— What  the  real  difficulty  of  the  question  is. — 
Agreement  of  the  moral  theory  of  a  state  with  the  true 
theory  of  the  church. — The  one  seems  to  require  the  other. 
— Notice  of  some  special  objections. — The  objections  as- 
sume as  true  what  is  condemned  by  high  authorities. — 
Confusion  as  to  what  is  properly  "  secular." — Excommuni- 
cation a  secular  punishment. — In  what  sense  our  Lord's 
kingdom  was  not  a  kingdom  of  this  world. — Conclusion  .  64 

[NOTES 34] 


LECTURE  I. 

Introductory  remarks. — Contrast  between  ancient  and  modern 
history. — Extreme  voluminousness  of  modern  history. — 
Some  one  particular  portion  to  be  selected. — First  study  it 
in  a  contemporary  historian. — Or  in  those  of  more  than  one 
nation. — Other  authorities  next  to  be  consulted. — Advan- 
tages of  the  university  libraries. — Collections  of  treaties  to 
be  consulted. — Rymer's  Fcedera. — Also  collections  of  laws, 
&c. — Their  value  to  the  historical  student — Letters  or  other 
writings  of  great  men. — Miscellaneous  literature. — How 
such  reading  may  be  made  practicable,  by  reading  with  a 
view  to  our  particular  object. — And  yet  will  not  be  super- 
ficial.— What  reading  is  superficial  and  misleading. — Re- 


CONTENTS.  19 

VMM 

markable  example  of  misquotation  from  Mosheim's  Ecclesi- 
astical History. — Which  quotation  has  inadvertently  been 
given  by  several  successive  writers. — Showing  the  danger 
of  quoting  at  second-hand. — Still  a  knowledge  of  past  times 
is  insufficient  and  even  incomplete  in  itself,  without  a  lively 
knowledge  of  the  present. — Good  effects  of  a  knowledge  of 
the  present,  and  generally  of  more  than  one  period. — To 
prevent  our  wrongly  valuing  one  period. — Especially  to 
prevent  us  from  decrying  our  own. — Recapitulation. — Sub- 
ject of  the  ensuing  lecture  91 

[NOTES 114] 


LECTURE  II. 

Two  periods  of  modern  history. — Before  and  after  the  six- 
teenth century. — The  history  of  the  first  is  simpler,  of  the 
second  more  complicated. — Historians  of  the  first  period. 
— Bede. — Study  of  language  in  history. — Importance  of 
good  habits  of  translation. — Difference  of  the  classical  and 
later  Latin. — Trustworthiness  of  historians. — Question  as  to  » 
Bede's  accounts  of  miracles. — Difference  between  wonders 
and  miracles. — Alleged  miracles  by  far  the  most  difficult. — 
Their  external  testimony  defective ;  and  also  their  internal 
evidence. — They  are  generally  to  be  disbelieved. — Perhaps 
with  some  exceptions. — But  even  if  true  they  cannot  sanc- 
tion all  the  opinions  held  by  those  who  work  them. — Ques- 
tions belonging  to  the  thirteenth  century. — Questions  in  the 
study  of  the  Chronicles. — Philip  de  Comines. — Advantages 
of  previous  classical  study. — Greater  difficulty  in  the  study 
of  the  middle  ages. — Importance  of  genealogies. — We  must 
look  backwards  and  forwards. — Examples  given. — Contest 
for  the  throne  of  Naples. — Peculiar  interest  of  the  period 
described  by  Philip  de  Comines. — Contrast  between  him 
and  Herodotus. — Conclusion 119 

'NOTES        .  142] 


20  CONTENTS. 

LECTURE  III. 

MM 

Magnitude  of  modern  history. — Its  different  subjects  of  study. 
— External  history. — Geography. — Common  notions  of  ge- 
ography.— How  it  should  be  studied. — Examples  of  its  im- 
portance.— Geography  of  Italy. — Tendency  of  the  last  three 
centuries. — Small  states  swallowed  up  by  great  ones. — 
Excesses  of  this  tendency. — First,  Spain. — Spain  dangerous 
to  Europe. — The  Austro-Spanish  power. — France  danger- 
ous to  Europe. — Ascendency  of  England  in  1763. — France 
under  Napoleon. — The  dominion  of  Napoleon. — Its  won- 
derful overthrow. — These  are  merely  external  struggles ; 
although  often  mixed  up  with  struggles  of  principle. — The 
questions  contained  in  them  are  economical  and  military. — 
Economical  questions. — Difficulty  of  supporting  a  war. — 
Temptation  to  raise  money  by  loans. — Evils  of  the  borrow- 
ing system. — Examples  of  financial  difficulties  in  France 
and  in  England. — Are  such  evils  unavoidable  1 — Conclusion  147 

|NOTES 170] 

LECTURE  IV. 

Difficulty  of  speaking  on  others'  professions. — How  far  it  may 
be  done  with  propriety. — And  where  we  must  be  ignorant. 
— Whose  campaigns  are  worth  studying. — Discipline  must 
conquer  enthusiasm. — Will  some  races  always  beat  others  ? 
— Not  of  necessity. — Mischiefs  of  irregular  warfare. — 
Irregular  warfare  not  justified  by  the  accident  of  our  coun- 
try's being  invaded. — Certain  laws  of  war  considered. —  A 
Plundering  a  town  taken  by  storm. — General  Napier's  judg- 
ment on  this  point. — Of  the  right  of  blockade. — Siege  of 
Genoa  in  1800. — Importance  of  amending  bad  laws. — Of 
wrong  done  in  going  to  war. — Suspicion  begets  suspicion. — 
Understanding  of  military  operations. — What  leads  to  battles 
in  particular  places. — Great  lines  of  road  often  change. — 
Changes  in  roads  and  fortresses. — Mountain  warfare. — 
Conclusion  .  .  .  .  .  „  .  .  l&l 

[NOTES         ...  .  .  207] 


CONTENTS.  2t 

LECTURE  V. 

PA  01 

Transition  to  internal  history. — General  divisions  of  the  sub- 
ject.— Question  of  many  and  few. — What  is  a  popular  party  ? 
— What  is  meant  by  the  few  and  the  many  1 — What  is  the 
good  of  a  nation  ? — Principles  intermixed  with  one  another. 
— Example  of  Hume. — What  is  the  party  of  the  movement ' 
— Not  always  a  popular  party. — Parties  changed  by  time. — 
Example  of  the  Guelfs  and  Ghibelins. — Dread  of  extinct 
evils  ;  or  of  such  as  are  the  weaker.-^-Analysis  of  internal 
history. — Period  of  religious  movement. — Parties  in  Eng- 
land first  appear  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth. — Three  parties. 
— The  party  of  the  established  church. — The  party  of  the 
puritans. — Party  of  the  Romanists. — Ability  of  Elizabeth. — 
Her  great  popularity 219 

[NOTES 244] 

LECTURE  VI. 

Church  questions  are  often  political  rather  than  religious; 
inasmuch  as  they  have  been  questions  of  government. — 
Questions  of  the  priesthood  are  religious,  but  were  not  dis- 
cussed in  England. — Church  questions  in  England  political, 
as  the  church  and  state  were  one. — Yet  the  church  ques- 
tions were  in  form  not  political  till  the  reign  of  James  I. — 
Causes  of  the  political  movement. — Growth  of  the  House 
of  Commons. — Its  growth  owing 'to  that  of  the  nation. — 
The  intellectual  movement  stood  aloof  from  the  political, 
being  regarded  by  it  with  suspicion,  especially  by  the  re- 
ligious movement. — Why  the  purely  intellectual  movement 
inclined  to  the  party  upholding  church  authority  ;  submitting 
to  it  insincerely. — State  of  the  contest  hitherto. — It  might 
have  been  delayed  but  not  prevented. — Change  wrought  in 
the  popular  party  ;  both  in  its  religious  party  and  in  its  politi- 
cal.— Elements  of  the  antipopular  party. — Nobleness  of  its 
best  members. — Lord  Falkland. — Its  other  members. — 
Those,  who  are  called  meek  and  oeaceable. — They  have  no 


'22  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

temptation  to  be  otherwise,  and  are  not  to  be  admired. — 
Other  opponents  of  puritanism,  some  better  and  others 
worse. — Lord  Falkland's  character  of  these. — Results  of 
the  civil  war. — Altered  relations  of  church  and  state. — 

Conclusion         ...  261 

[NOTES 288] 


LECTURE  VII. 

England  after  the  Revolution. — Parties  supporting  or  dis- 
liking it. — The  popular  party. — Two  divisions  of  the  oppo- 
site party. — One  of  these  maintained  the  Revolution  because 
it  had  changed  so  little ;  yet  the  advantages  involved  in  it 
were  both  great  and  lasting. — Treatment  of  Ireland  by  the 
popular  party. — Feelings  of  the  opposite  party  towards 
France. — The  poorer  class  unfriendly  to  the  Revolution. 
— Parties  in  the  eighteenth  century. — Triumph  of  the  popu- 
lar party. — What  it  neglected  to  accomplish. — New  form  of 
English  party. — First  years  of  George  the  Third's  reign. — 
— The  House  of  Commons  antipopular. — How  this  came  to 
take  place. — New  popular  party  out  of  parliament. — The 
periodical  press. — Separation  of  politics  from  morals. — 
Letters  of  Junius. — American  war. — War  of  the  French 
Revolution. — Consistency  of  parties. — General  view  of  the 
movement. — Omissions  of  both  parties. — Our  judgment  of 
them  affected  by  our  judgment  of  earlier  times. — Conclusion  315 

[NOTES 340] 


LECTURE  VIII. 

Credibility  of  history. — History  alone  tells  us  of  the  past 
— Whether  a  narrative  is  meant  to  be  history. — Example 
from  Sir  Walter  Scott's  works. — A  narrative  may  aim  at 
truth  and  yet  be  careless  of  fact. — Criteria  of  an  historical 
narrative. — Ecclesiastical  biographies. — Credibility  of  wri- 
tings clearly  historical. — Contemporary  writers  often  over- 
rated.— The  narrative  of  actual  witnesses. — Witnesses  more 


CONTENTS.  23 

PAGB 

or  less  perfect. — The  principal  actor  a  perfect  witness,  in 
knowledge  though  not  in  honesty. — All  history  credible  up 
to  a  certain  point. — An  earnest  craving  after  truth  the  great 
qualification  of  an  historian. — Truth  when  sought  may  be 
found. — The  craving  after  truth  in  a  reader  enables  him  to  » 
estimate  truth  in  a  writer. — Examination  of  an  historian's 
credibility,  both  as  to  style  and  matter. — As  to  the  authori- 
ties referred  to. — As  a  military  historian. — As  a  political 
historian. — False  notions  of  impartiality. — Objection  to  his- 
tory generally. — Uncertainty  as  to  political  questions. — 
Their  laws  not  really  uncertain,  although  often  thought  to 
be  so. — Certain  principles  are  clearly  good. — Yet  can  his- 
tory profit  us  1 — Or  are  we  bound  by  an  unchangeable  fate  1  ' 
— Can  we  undo  the  effect  of  the  past  1 — Supposed  case  in 
the  French  Revolution. — The  effects  of  the  past  partly  re- 
versible.— Conclusion  of  the  Lectures. — Proposed  subject 

of  the  next  course. — Conclusion 367 

[NOTES 394] 

[APPENDIX  I. — On  Dr.  Arnold's  character  as  an  Historian, 
from  the  *  Life  and  Correspondence'  .        .         .  413] 

[APPENDIX  II. — On  historical  instruction,  from  Dr.  Arnold's 
account  of  *  Rugby  School'  ....          419] 

[APPENDIX  III. — On  Translation 423] 


INAUGURAL    LECTURE. 


IT  has  been  often  remarked,  that  when  a  stranger  enters 
St.  Peter's  for  the  first  time,  the  immediate  impression  is  one 
of  disappointment;  the  building  looks  smaller  than  he  ex- 
pected to  find  it.  So  it  is  with  the  first  sight  of  mountains ; 
their  summits  never  seem  so  near  the  clouds  as  we  had  hoped 
to  see  them.  But  a  closer  acquaintance  with  these,  and  with 
other  grand  or  beautiful  objects,  convinces  us  that  our  first 
impression  arose  not  from  the  want  of  greatness  in  what  we 
saw,  but  from  a  want  of  comprehensiveness  in  ourselves  to 
grasp  it.  What  we  saw  was  not  all  that  existed ;  but  all 
that  our  untaught  glance  could  master.  As  we  know  it  bet- 
ter, it  remains  the  same,  but  we  rise  more  nearly  to  its  level : 
our  greater  admiration  is  but  the  proof  that  we  are  become 
able  to  appreciate  it  more  truly.  (1) 

Something  of  this  sort  takes  place,  I  think,  in  our  unin- 
structed  impressions  of  history.  We  are  not  inclined  to  rate 
very  highly  the  qualifications  required  either  in  the  student 
or  in  the  writer  of  it.  It  seems  to  demand  little  more  than 
memory  in  the  one,  and  honesty  and  diligence  in  the  other. 
It  is,  we  say,  only  a  record  of  facts ;  and  such  a  work  seems 
to  offer  no  field  for  the  imagination,  or  for  the  judgment,  or 
for  our  powers  of  reasoning.  History  is  but  time's  follower ; 
she  does  not  pretend  to  discover,  but  merely  to  register  what 
time  has  brought  to  light  already.  Eminent  men  have  been 
known  to  hold  this  language ;  Johnson,  whose  fondness  for 
biography  might  have  taught  him  to  judge  more  truly,  enter- 

3 


26  INAUGURAL    LECTURE. 

tained  little  respect  for  history.  We  cannot  comprehend 
what  we  have  never  studied,  and  history  must  be  content  to 
share  in  the  common  portion  of  every  thing  great  and  good ; 
it  must  be  undervalued  by  a  hasty  observer. 

If  I  were  to  attempt  to  institute  a  comparison  between  the 
excellencies  of  history  and  those  of  other  studies,  I  should  be 
falling  into  the  very  fault  which  I  have  been  just  noticing; 
I  might  be  doing  injustice  to  other  branches  of  knowledge, 
only  because  I  had  no  sufficient  acquaintance  with  them. 
But  I  may  be  allowed  to  claim  for  history,  not  any  particular 
rank,  whether  high  or  low,  as  compared  with  other  studies, 
but  simply  that  credit  should  be  given  it  for  containing  more 
than  a  superficial  view  of  it  can  appreciate  ;  for  having  trea- 
sures, neither  lying  on  the  surface  nor  immediately  below  the 
surface, — treasures  not  to  be  obtained  without  much  labor, 
yet  rewarding  the  hardest  labor  amply. 

To  these  treasures  it  is  my  business  to  endeavor  to  point 
out  the  way.  A  Professor  of  history,  if  I  understand  his 
duties  rightly,  has  two  principal  objects ;  he  must  try  to  ac- 
quaint his  hearers  with  the  nature  and  value  of  the  treasure 
for  which  they  are  searching ;  and,  secondly,  he  must  try  to 
show  them  the  best  and  speediest  method  of  discovering  and 
extracting  it.  The  first  of  these  two  things  may  be  done 
once  for  all ;  but  the  second  must  be  his  habitual  employ- 
ment, the  business  of  his  professorial  life.  I  am  now,  there- 
fore, not  to  attempt  to  enter  upon  the  second,  but  to  bestow 
my  attention  upon  the  first :  I  must  try  to  state  what  is  the 
treasure  to  be  found  by  a  search  into  the  records  of  history ; 
if  we  cannot  be  satisfied  that  it  is  abundant  and  most  valua- 
ble, we  shall  care  little  to  be  instructed  how  to  gain  it. 

In  speaking  of  history  generally,  I  may  appear  to  be  for- 
getting that  my  proper  subject  is  more  limited ;  that  it  is  not 
history  simply,  but  modern  history.  I  am  perfectly  aware 
of  this,  and  hope  not  to  forged  it  in  my  practice  :  but  still  at 


INAUGURAL   LECTURE.  2? 

the  outset  I  must  trace  the  stream  from  its  source ;  1  musl 
ask  you  to  remain  with  me  awhile  on  the  high  ground,  where 
the  waters,  which  are  hereafter  to  form  the  separate  streams 
of  ancient  and  modern  history,  lie  as  yet  undistinguished  in 
their  common  parent  lake.  I  must  speak  of  history  in  gene- 
ral, in  order  to  understand  the  better  the  character  of  any 
one  of  its  particular  species. 

The  general  idea  of  history  seems  to  be,  that  it  is  the 
biography  of  a  society.  It  does  not  appear  to  me  to  be  his- 
tory at  all,  but  simply  biography,  unless  it  finds  in  the  per- 
sons who  are  its  subject  something  of  a  common  purpose,  the 
accomplishment  of  which  is  the  object  of  their  common  life. 
History  is  to  this  common  life  of  many,  what  biography  is  to 
the  life  of  an  individual.  Take,  for  instance,  any  common 
family,  and  its  members  are  soon  so  scattered  from  one  an- 
other, and  are  engaged  in  such  different  pursuits,  that  al- 
though it  is  possible  to  write  the  biography  of  each  individual, 
yet  there  can  be  no  such  thing,  properly  speaking,  as  the 
history  of  the  family.  But  suppose  all  the  members  to  be 
thrown  together  in  one  place,  amidst  strangers  or  savages, 
and  there  immediately  becomes  a  common  life, — a  unity  of 
action, — interest,  and  purpose,  distinct  from  others  around 
them,  which  renders  them  at  once  a  fit  subject  of  history. 
Perhaps  I  ought  not  to  press  the  wrord  "purpose;"  because 
purpose  implies  consciousness  in  the  purposer,  and  a  society 
may  exist  without  being  fully  conscious  of  its  own  business 
as  a  society.  But  whether  consciously  or  not,  every  society 
— so  much  is  implied  in  the  very  word — must  have  in  it 
something  of  community  ;  and  so  far  as  the  members  of  it 
are  members,  so  far  as  they  are  each  incomplete  parts,  but 
taken  together  form  a  whole,  so  far,  it  appears  to  me,  their 
joint  life  is  the  proper  subject  of  history. 

Accordingly  we  find  the  term  history  often  applied  to  small 


28  INAUGURAL   LECTURE. 

and  subordinate  societies.  We  speak  of  the  history  of  lite, 
rary  or  scientific  societies ;  we  have  histories  of  commercial 
bodies  ;  histories  of  religious  orders ;  histories  of  universities. 
In  all  these  cases,  history  has  to  do  with  that  which  the  sev- 
eral members  of  each  of  these  societies  have  in  common ;  it 
is,  as  I  said,  the  biography  of  their  common  life.  And  it 
seems  to  me  that  it  could  not  perform  its  office,  if  it  had  no 
distinct  notion  in  what  this  common  life  consisted. 

But  if  the  life  of  every  society  belongs  to  history,  much 
more  does  the  life  of  that  highest  and  sovereign  society  which 
we  call  a  state  or  a  nation.  And  this  in  fact  is  considered 
the  proper  subject  of  history ;  insomuch  that  if  we  speak  of 
it  simply,  without  any  qualifying  epithet,  we  understand  by 
it,  not  the  biography  of  any  subordinate  society,  but  of  some 
one  or  more  of  the  great  national  societies  of  the  human 
race,  whatever  political  form  their  bond  of  connection  may 
assume.  And  thus  we  get  a  somewhat  stricter  definition  of 
history  properly  so  called ;  we  may  describe  it  not  simply 
as  the  biography  of  a  society,  but  as  the  biography  of  a  po- 
litical society  or  commonwealth. 

Now  in  a  commonwealth  or  state,  that  common  life  which 
I  have  ventured  to  call  the  proper  subject  of  history,  finds  its 
1  natural  expression  in  those  who  are  invested  with  the  state's 
government.  Here  we  have  the  varied  elements  which  exist 
in  the  body  of  a  nation,  reduced  as  it  were  to  an  intelligible 
unity :  the  state  appears  to  have  a  personal  existence  in  its 
government.  And  where  that  government  is  lodged  in  the 
hands  of  a  single  individual,  then  biography  and  history 
seem  to  melt  into  one  another,  inasmuch  as  one  and  the  same 
person  combines  in  himself  his  life  as  an  individual,  and  the 
common  life  of  his  nation. 

That  common  life,  then,  which  we  could  not  find  repre- 
sented by  any  private  members  of  the  state,  is  brought  to  a 
head,  as  it  were,  and  exhibited  intelligibly  and  visibly  in  the 


INAUGURAL   LECTURE.  29 

government.  And  thus  history  has  generally  taken  govern, 
ments  as  the  proper  representatives  of  nations;  it  has  re- 
corded  the  actions  and  fortunes  of  kings  or  national  councils, 
and  has  so  appeared  to  fulfil  its  appointed  duty,  that  of  re- 
cording the  life  of  a  commonwealth.  Nor  is  this  theoreti- 
cally other  than  true ;  the  idea  of  government  is  no  doubt 
that  it  should  represent  the  person  of  the  state,  desiring  those 
ends,  and  contriving  those  means  to  compass  them,  which  the 
state  itself,  if  it  could  act  for  itself,  ought  to  desire  and  to 
contrive.  But  practically  and  really  this  has  not  been  so : 
governments  have  less  represented  the  state  than  themselves ; 
the  individual  life  has  so  predominated  in  them  over  the  com 
mon  life,  that  what  in  theory  is  history,  because  it  is  record- 
ing the  actions  of  a  government,  and  the  government  repre- 
sents the  nation,  becomes  in  fact  no  more  than  biography ;  it 
does  but  record  the  passions  and  actions  of  an  individual, 
who  is  abusing  the  state's  name  for  the  purposes  of  selfish, 
rather  than  public  good. 

We  see,  then,  in  practice  how  history  has  been  beguiled, 
so  to  speak,  from  its  proper  business,  and  has  ceased  to  de- 
scribe the  life  of  a  commonwealth.  For,  taking  governments 
as  the  representatives  of  commonwealths,  which  in  idea  they 
are,  history  has  watched  their  features,  as  if  from  them  might 
be  drawn  the  portrait  of  their  respective  nations.  But  as  in 
this  she  has  been  deceived,  so  her  portraits  were  necessarily 
unlike  what  they  were  intended  to  represent ;  they  were  not 
portraits  of  the  commonwealth,  but  of  individuals. 

Again,  the  life  of  a  commonwealth,  like  that  of  an  indi- 
vidual, has  two  parts ;  it  is  partly  external,  and  partly  inter- 
nal. Its  external  life  is  seen  in  its  dealings  with  other 
commonwealths ;  its  internal  life,  in  its  dealings  with  itself. 
Now  in  the  former  of  these,  government  must  ever  be,  in  a 
certain  degree,  the  representative  of  the  nation ;  there  must 
here  be  a  community  of  interest,  at  lea«f  \\p  *<*  a  certain 

8* 


30  INAUGURAL   LECTURE. 

point,  and  something  also  of  a  community  of  feeling.  If  a 
government  be  overthrown  by  a  foreign  enemy,  the  nation 
shares  in  the  evils  of  the  conquest,  and  in  the  shame  of  the 
defeat ;  if  it  be  victorious,  the  nation,  even  if  not  enriched 
with  the  spoils,  is  yet  proud  to  claim  its  portion  of  the  glory. 
And  thus,  in  describing  a  government's  external  life,  that  is, 
its  dealings  with  other  governments,  history  has  remained, 
and  could  not  but  remain,  true  to  its  proper  subject :  for  in 
foreign  war,  the  government  must  represent  more  than  its  in- 
dividual self;  here  it  really  must  act  and  suffer,  not  alto- 
gether, but  yet  to  a  considerable  degree,  for  and  with  the 
nation. 

I  have  assumed  that  the  external  life  of  a  state  is  seen  in 
little  else  than  in  its  wars;  and  this  I  fear  is  true,  with 
scarcely  any  qualification.  A  state  acting  out  of  itself,  is 
mostly  either  repelling  violence,  or  exercising  it  upon  others ; 
the  friendly  intercourse  between  nation  and  nation  is  for  the 
most  part  negative.  A  nation's  external  life,  then,  is  dis- 
played in  its  wars,  and  here  history  has  been  sufficiently 
busy :  the  wars  of  the  human  race  have  been  recorded,  when 
the  memory  of  every  thing  else  has  perished.  Nor  is  this  to 
be  wondered  at ;  for  the  external  life  of  nations,  as  of  indi- 
viduals, is  at  once  the  most  easily  known  and  the  most  gene- 
rally interesting.  Action,  in  the  common  sense  of  the  word, 
is  intelligible  to  every  one ;  its  effects  are  visible  and  sensi- 
ble ;  in  itself,  from  its  necessary  connection  with  outward 
nature,  it  is  often  highly  picturesque,  while  the  qualities  dis- 
played in  it  are  some  of  those  which,  by  an  irresistible  in- 
stinct, we  are  most  led  to  admire.  Ability  in  the  adaptation 
of  means  to  ends,  courage,  endurance,  and  perseverance,  the 
complete  conquest  over  some  of  fne  most  universal  weak- 
nesses of  our  nature,  the  victory  over  some  of  its  most  pow- 
erful temptations, — these  are  qualities  displayed  in  action, 
and  particularly  in  war.  And  it  is  our  deep  sympathy  with 


INAUGURAL    LECTURE.  31 

these  qualities,  much  more  than  any  fondness  for  scenes  of 
horror  and  blood,  which  has  made  descriptions  of  battles, 
whether  in  poetry  or  history,  so  generally  attractive.  He 
who  can  read  these  without  interest,  differs,  I  am  inclined  to 
think,  from  the  mass  of  mankind  rather  for  the  worse  than 
for  the  better ;  he  rather  wants  some  noble  qualities  which 
other  men  have,  than  possesses  some  which  other  men  want. 

But  still  we  have  another  life  besides  that  of  outward 
action ;  and  it  is  this  inward  life  after  all  which  determines 
the  character  of  the  actions  and  of  the  man.  And  how  eagerly 
do  we  desire  in  those  great  men  whose  actions  fill  so  large  a 
space  in  history,  to  know  not  only  what  they  did  but  what 
they  were :  how  much  do  we  prize  their  letters  or  their  re- 
corded words,  and  not  least  such  words  as  are  uttered  in  their 
most  private  moments,  which  enable  us  to  look  as  it  were 
into  the  very  nature  of  that  mind,  whose  distant  effects  we 
know  to  be  so  marvellous !  But  a  nation  has  its  inward  life 
no  less  than  an  individual,  and  from  this  its  outward  life  also 
is  characterized.  For  what  does  a  nation  effect  by  war,  but 
either  the  securing  of  its  existence,  or  the  increasing  of  its 
power  ?  We  honor  the  heroism  shown  in  accomplishing 
these  objects;  but  power,  nay  even  existence,  are  not  ultimate 
ends ;  the  question  may  be  asked  of  every  created  being  why 
he  should  live  at  all,  and  no  satisfactory  answer  can  be  given, 
if  his  life  does  not,  by  doing  God's  will  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, tend  to  God's  glory  and  to  the  good  of  his  brethren. 
And  if  a  nation's  annals  contain  the  record  of  deeds  ever  so 
heroic,  done  in  defence  of  the  national  freedom  or  existence, 
still  we  may  require  that  the  freedom  or  the  life  so  bravely 
maintained  should  be  also  employed  for  worthy  purposes ;  or 
else  even  the  names  of  Thermopylae  and  of  Morgarten  be- 
come in  after  years  a  reproach  rather  than  a  glory.  (2) 

Turning  then  to  regard  the  inner  life  of  a  nation,  we 
cannot  but  see  that  here,  as  in  the  life  of  an  individual,  it  is' 


32  INAUGURAL   LECTURE. 

determined  by  the  nature  of  its  ultimate  end.  What  is  a 
nation's  main  object,  is  therefore  a  question  which  must  be 
asked,  before  we  can  answer  whether  its  inner  life,  and  con- 
sequently its  outward  life  also,  which  depends  upon  the  inner 
life,  is  to  be  called  good  or  evil.  Now  it  does  not  seem  easy 
to  conceive  that  a  nation  can  have  any  other  object  than  that 
which  is  the  highest  object  of  every  individual  in  it;  if  it  can, 
then  the  attribute  of  sovereignty  which  is  inseparable  from 
nationality  becomes  the  dominion  of  an  evil  principle.  For 
suppose,  for  instance,  that  a  nation  as  such  is  not  cognizant 
of  the  notions  of  justice  and  humanity,  but  that  its  highest 
object  is  wealth,  or  dominion,  or  security.  It  then  follows 
that  the  sovereign  power  in  human  life,  which  can  influence 
the  minds  and  compel  the  actions  of  us  all,  is  a  power  alto- 
gether unmoral ;  and  if  unmoral,  and  yet  commanding  the 
actions  of  moral  beings,  then  evil.  Again,  if  being  cognizant 
of  the  notions  of  justice  and  humanity  it  deliberately  prefers 
other  objects  to  them,  then  here  is  the  dominion  of  an  evil 
principle  still  more  clearly.  But  if  it  be  cognizant  of  them 
and  appreciates  them  rightly,  then  it  must  see  that  they  are 
more  to  be  followed  than  any  objects  of  outward  advantage ; 
then  it  acknowledges  moral  ends  as  a  higher  good  than  phys 
ical  ends,  and  thus,  as  we  said,  agrees  with  every  good  indi 
vidual  man  in  its  estimate  of  the  highest  object  of  national  nc» 
less  than  of  individual  life. 

It  is  sometimes  urged,  that  although  this  be  true  of  individ- 
uals, yet  it  is  not  true  of  every  society  •  that  we  constantly 
see  instances  of  the  contrary ;  that,  for  example,  the  highest 
object  of  the  Royal  Society  as  a  society  is  the  advancement 
of  science,  although  to  the  individuals  of  that  society  a  moral 
and  religious  object  would  be  incomparably  of  higher  value. 
Why  then  may  not  the  highest  object  of  a  nation,  as  such,  be 
self-defence,  or  wealth,  or  any  other  outward  good,  although 
every  individual  of  the  nation  puts  a  moral  object  before  any 


INAUGURAL    LECTURE.  33 

mere  external  benefits.  The  answer  to  this  is  simply  be, 
cause  a  nation  is  a  sovereign  society,  and  it  is  something 
monstrous  that  the  ultimate  power  in  human  life  should  be 
destitute  of  a  sense  of  right  and  wrong.  For  there  being  a 
right  and  a  wrong  in  all  or  almost  all  our  actions,  the  power 
which  can  command  or  forbid  these  actions  without  an  appeal 
to  any  human  tribunal  higher  than  itself,  must  surely  have  a 
sense  not  only  of  the  right  or  wrong  of  this  particular  action 
now  commanded  or  forbidden,  but  generally  of  the  compara- 
tive value  of  different  ends,  and  thus  of  the  highest  end  of  all ; 
lest  perchance  while  commanding  what  is  in  itself  good,  it 
may  command  it  at  a  time  or  in  a  degree  to  interfere  with 
some  higher  good ;  and  then  it  is  in  fact  commanding  evil. 
And  that  the  power  of  government  is  thus  extensive  and 
sovereign  seems  admitted,  not  only  historically,  inasmuch  as 
no  known  limits  to  it  have  ever  been  affixed,  nor  indeed  can 
be,  without  contradiction,  but  also  by  our  common  sense  and 
language,  which  feels  and  expresses  that  government  does, 
and  may,  and  ought  to  interpose  in  a  great  variety  of  matters ; 
various  for  instance,  as  education  and  the  raising  of  a  rev- 
enue, and  the  making  of  war  or  peace  ,*  matters  which  it 
would  be  very  difficult  to  class  together  under  any  one  com- 
mon head,  except  such  a^  i  nave  assigned  as  the  end  of  po- 
litical society,  the  highest  good,  namely,  of  the  whole  society 
or  nation.  And  our  common  notions  of  the  difference  be- 
tween a  government  and  a  police,  between  a  government  and 
an  army,  are  alone  sufficient  to  show  the  fallacy  of  the  at- 
tempted comparison.  It  is  the  ultimate  object  of  a  police  to 
provide  for  the  security  of  our  bodies  and  goods  against  vio- 
lence at  home,  as  it  is  the  object  of  an  army  to  secure  them 
against  violence  from  without.  Policemen  and  soldiers  have 
individually  another  and  a  higher  object ;  but  the  societies, 
if  I  may  so  call  them,  the  institutions  of  a  police  and  an  army, 
have  not.  And  who  does  not  see  that  for  this  very  reason 


34  INAUGURAL    LECTURE. 

the  police  and  the  army  are  not  sovereign  societies,  but 
essentially  subordinate  ;  that  because  they  are  not  cognizant 
of  moral  ends,  therefore  they  are  incapable  of  directing  men's 
conduct  in  the  last  resort ;  and  that  therefore  they  are  them- 
selves subject  to  a  higher  power,  namely,  that  of  the  govern- 
ment, the  representative  of  the  national  life  ?  If  neither  is 
the  government  cognizant  of  moral  ends,  then  it  too  must  be 
subject  to  some  higher  power,  which  is  a  contradiction  in 
terms ;  or  else,  as  I  said  before,  it  cannot  surely  be  the  ordi- 
nance of  God  ;  and  if  not,  can  it  be  otherwise  than  evil  ? 

Perhaps  it  was  hardly  necessary  to  dwell  so  long  on  this 
point  before  my  present  hearers;  yet  the  opposite  doctrine  to 
that  which  I  have  been  asserting  has  been  maintained,  since 
Warburton,  by  names  deserving  of  no  common  respect :  and 
what  seems  to  me  the  truth,  was  necessary  to  be  stated,  be- 
cause on  it  depends  our  whole  view  of  history,  so  far  as  his- 
tory is  more  than  a  mere  record  of  wars.  In  wars  no  doubt 
the  end  sought  is  no  more  than  a  nation's  security  or  power ; 
in  other  words,  that  she  may  develop  her  internal  life  at 
all,  or  develop  it  with  vigour.  But  we  must  recognise  some 
worthy  end  for  the  life  thus  preserved,  or  strengthened  ; 
otherwise  it  is  but  given  in  vain. 

That  end  appears  to  be  the  promoting  and  securing  a  na- 
tion's highest  happiness ;  so  we  must  express  it  in  its  most 
general  formula  ;  but  under  the  most  favorable  combination 
of  circumstances,  this  same  end  is  conceived  and  expressed 
more  purely,  as  the  setting  forth  God's  glory  by  doing  His 
appointed  work.  And  that  work  for  a  nation  seems  to  imply 
not  only  Ihe  greatest  possible  perfecting  of  the  natures  of  its 
individual  members,  but  also  the  perfecting  of  all  those  acts 
which  are  done  by  the  nation  collectively,  or  by  the  govern- 
ment standing  in  its  place,  and  faithfully  representing  it. 
For  that  conceivably  a  nation  may  have  duties  of  vast  im 
portance  to  perform  in  its  national  capacity,  and  which  canno 


INAUGURAL   LECTURE.  35 

be  effected  by  its  individual  members,  however  excellent — - 
duties  of  its  external  life  of  a  very  different  sort  from  ordinary 
wars,  even  when  justifiable,  seems  to  follow  at  once  from  the 
consideration  that  every  single  state  is  but  a  member  of  a 
greater  body ;  that  is,  immediately,  of  the  great  body  of  or- 
ganized states  throughout  the  world,  and  still  farther,  of  the 
universal  family  of  mankind,  and  that  it  is  a  member  of  both 
according  to  the  will  of  God. 

But  perfection  in  outward  life  is  the  fruit  of  perfection  in 
the  life  within  us.  And  a  nation's  inner  life  consists  in  its 
action  upon  and  within  itself.  Now  in  order  to  the  perfecting 
of  itself,  it  must  follow  certain  principles,  and  acquire  certain 
habits ;  in  other  words,  it  must  have  its  laws  and  institutions 
adapted  to  the  accomplishment  of  its  great  end.  On  these 
the  characters  of  its  people  so  mainly  depend,  that  if  these 
be  faulty,  the  whole  inner  life  is  corrupted  ;  if  these  be  good, 
it  is  likely  to  go  on  healthfully.  The  history  then  of  a  nation's 
internal  life,  is  the  history  of  its  institutions  and  of  its  laws^ 
both  of  which  are  included  under  the  term  laws,  in  the  com- 
prehensive sense  of  that  word  as  used  by  the  Greeks ;  (3) 
but  for  us  it  is  most  convenient  to  distinguish  them.  Let  us 
consider  how  much  these  two  terms  include. 

I  would  first  say  that  by  institutions  I  wish  to  understand 
such  offices,  orders  of  men,  public  bodies,  settlements  of  prop- 
erty, customs,  or  regulations,  concerning  matters  of  general 
usage,  as  do  not  owe  their  existence  to  any  express  law  or 
laws,  but  having  originated  in  various  ways  at  a  period  of 
remote  antiquity,  are  already  parts  of  the  national  system,  at 
the  very  beginning  of  our  historical  view  of  it,  and  are  re- 
cognised by  all  actual  laws,  as  being  themselves  a  kind  of 
primary  condition  on  which  all  recorded  legislation  proceeds. 
And  I  would  confine  the  term  laws  to  the  enactments  of  a 
cnown  legislative  power,  at  a  certain  known  period. 

Here  then,  in  the  institutions  and  legislation  of  a  country 


36  INAUGURAL   LECTURE. 

the  principles,  and  rules,  and  influencing  powers  of  its  inter, 
nal  life,  we  have  one  of  the  noblest  subjects  of  history. 
For  by  one  or  both  of  these,  generally  from  institutions  modi- 
fied  by  laws,  comes  in  the  first  place  what  we  call  the  consti 
tution  of  a  country ;  that  is.  to  speak  generally,  its  peculiar 
arrangement  of  the  executive,  legislative,  and  judicial  powers 
of  government.  The  bearing  of  the  constitution  of  a  country 
upon  its  internal  life  is  twofold  ;  direct  and  indirect.  Foi 
example,  the  effect  of  any  particular  arrangement  of  the 
judicial  power  is  seen  directly  in  the  greater  or  less  purity 
with  which  justice  is  administered;  but  there  is  a  farther 
effect,  and  one  of  the  highest  importance,  in  its  furnishing  to 
a  greater  or  less  portion  of  the  nation  one  of  the  best  means 
of  moral  and  intellectual  culture,  the  opportunity,  namely, 
of  exercising  the  functions  of  a  judge.  I  mean,  that  to  ac- 
custom a  number  of  persons  to  the  intellectual  exercise  of 
attending  to,  and  weighing,  and  comparing  evidence,  and  to 
the  moral  exercise  of  being  placed  in  a  high  and  responsible 
situation,  invested  with  one  of  God's  own  attributes,  that  of 
judgment,  and  having  to  determine  with  authority  between 
truth  and  falsehood,  right  and  wrong,  is  to  furnish  them  with 
very  high  means  of  moral  and  intellectual  culture ;  in  other 
words,  it  is  providing  them  with  one  of  the  highest  kinds  of 
education.  And  thus  a  judicial  constitution  may  secure  a 
pure  administration  of  justice,  and  yet  fail  as  an  engine  of 
national  cultivation,  when  it  is  vested  in  the  hands  of  a  small 
body  of  professional  men,  like  the  old  French  parliaments. 
While,  on  the  other  hand,  it  may  communicate  the  judicial 
office  very  widely,  as  by  our  system  of  juries,  and  thus  may 
educate,  if  I  may  so  speak,  a  very  large  portion  of  the  nation, 
but  yet  may  not  succeed  in  obtaining  the  greatest  certainty 
of  just  legal  decisions.  I  do  not  mean  that  our  jury  systerr. 
does  not  succeed,  but  it  is  conceivable  that  it  should  not, 
So  in  the  same  wav  different  arrangements  of  the  executive 


INAUGURAL    LECTURE.  37 

and  legislative  powers  should  be  always  regarded  in  this 
twofold  aspect ;  as  effecting  their  direct  objects,  good  govern- 
ment and  good  legislation ;  and  as  educating  the  nation  more 
or  less  extensively,  by  affording  to  a  greater  or  less  number 
of  persons  practical  lessons  in  governing  and  legislating. 

I  have  noticed  the  political  constitution  of  a  country,  the 
first  of  all  its  institutions,  because  it  is  the  one  which  from 
its  prominence  first  attracts  our  notice.  Others,  however, 
although  less  conspicuous,  have  an  influence  not  less  impor- 
tant. Of  these  are  all  such  institutions  or  laws  as  relate  to 
public  instruction  in  the  widest  sense,  whether  of  the  young, 
or  of  persons  of  all  ages.  There  are  certain  principles  which 
the  State  wishes  to  inculcate  on  all  its  members,  certain 
habits  which  it  wishes  to  form,  a  certain  kind  and  degree  of 
knowledge  which  it  wishes  to  communicate  ;  such,  namely, 
as  bear  more  or  less  immediately  on  its  great  end,  its  own  in- 
tellectual and  moral  perfection,  arising  out  of  the  perfection  of 
its  several  members.  Now  as  far  as  this  instruction,  using 
the  term  again  in  its  widest  sense,  and  including  under  it  the 
formation  of  habits,  as  far  as  this  instruction  is  applied  to  the 
young,  it  goes  under  the  name  of  education ;  as  far  as  it 
regards  persons  of  all  ages,  it  generally  takes  the  form  of 
religion.  Even  in  heathen  countries,  where  direct  teaching 
was  no  part  of  the  business  of  the  ministers  of  religion,  still 
the  solemn  festivals,  the  games,  the  sacrifices,  the  systems 
of  divination,  nay,  the  very  temples  themselves,  had  an  un- 
doubted moral  effect  on  the  people,  whether  for  good  or  for 
evil,  and  were  designed  to  have  it ;  so  that  in  the  larger  sense 
already  claimed  for  the  word,  they  may  be  called  a  sort  of 
public  instruction.  In  Christian  countries,  religion  at  once 
inculcates  truths  and  forms  habits ;  the  first,  by  what  I  may 
be  allowed  to  call  prophesying  or  direct  teaching ;  the  second, 
by  this  also,  and  farther  by  the  ritual  and  social  agency  of 
the  Church.  Nor  need  I  add  one  word  to  rny  present  audi- 

4 


38  INAUGURAL    LECTURE. 

ence  to  impress  the  vast  importance  of  thus  one  of  a  nation's 
institutions. 

Neither  let  it  be  thought  an  abrupt  or  painful  descent,  if, 
from  the  mention  of  public  instruction  in  its  very  highest 
form,  I  pass  to  another  class  of  institutions  and  laws,  which 
some  may  look  upon  as  regarding  only  the  lowest  part  of  a 
state's  "external  life ;  those  institutions  and  laws,  I  mean, 
which  affect  the  acquisition  and  the  distribution  of  property.  I 
grant  that  the  way  in  which  economical  questions  are  some- 
times discussed  may  create  a  prejudice  against  the  study  of 
them  ;  excusably,  it  may  be,  yet  not  over  reasonably.  For 
in  economical  works,  the  economical  end  alone  is  regarded, 
without  taking  account  of  its  bearings  upon  the  higher  or 
political  end  to  which  it  should  minister.  But  surely  this,  as 
it  would  be  very  faulty  in  a  statesman,  is  not  at  all  faulty  in 
one  who  professes  only  to  be  an  economist ;  it  does  not  seem 
to  me  that,  in  discussing  any  subordinate  science,  its  relations 
with  the  supreme  or  architectonical  science  fall  properly 
under  our  consideration.  (4)  We  are  but  to  send  in  our 
report  of  the  facts  within  our  special  subject  of  inquiry ;  to 
legislate  upon  this  report  belongs  to  a  higher  department.  It 
is  very  useful  to  consider  economical  questions  in  a  purely 
economical  point  of  view,  in  order  to  discover  the  truth  re- 
specting them  merely  as  points  of  economy ;  although  it  by 
no  means  follows  that  what  is  expedient  economically,  is  ex- 
pedient also  politically,  because  it  may  well  be  that  another 
end  rather  than  the  economical  may  best  further  the  attain- 
ment of  the  great  end  of  the  commonwealth.  But  no  man 
who  thinks  seriously  about  it,  can  doubt  the  vast  moral  im- 
portance of  institutions  and  laws  relating  to  property.  It  has 
been  said  that  the  possession  of  property  implies  education ; 
that  is,  that  it  calls  forth  and  exercises  so  many  valuable 
qualities, — forethought,  love  of  order,  justice,  beneficence, 
and  wisdom  in  the  use  of  power, — that  he  who  possesses  it 


INAUGURAL    LECTURE.  39 

cannot  live  in  the  extreme  of  ignorance  or  brutality :  he  has 
learnt  unavoidably  some  of  the  higher  lessons  of  humanity. 
It  is  at  least  certain  that  the  utter  want  of  property  offers 
obstacles  to  the  moral  and  intellectual  education  of  persons 
labouring  under  it,  such  as  no  book  teaching  can  in  ordinary 
circumstances  overcome.  Laws  therefore  which  affect,  di- 
rectly or  indirectly,  the  distribution  of  property,  affect  also  a 
nation's  internal  life  very  deeply.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  in- 
difference whether  the  laws  of  inheritance  direct  the  equal 
distribution  of  a  man's  property  among  all  his  children,  or 
whether  they  establish  a  right  of  primogeniture ;  whether 
they  fix  the  principle  of  succession  independently  of  individ- 
ual discretion,  or  whether  they  leave  a  man  the  power  of 
disposing  of  his  property  by  will,  according  to  his  own  plea- 
sure. Nor,  again,  is  it  indifferent  whether  the  law  favors 
the  stability  of  property,  or  its  rapid  circulation ;  whether  it 
encourages  entails,  or  forbids  them ;  whether  it  determines 
that  land  held  in  mortmain  is  an  advantage  or  an  evil.  I 
might  allude  to  the  importance  of  commercial  laws,  whether 
for  good  or  for  evil ;  and  to  that  fruitful  source  of  political 
disputes  in  modern  times,  the  amount  and  character  of  a 
country's  taxation.  But  it  is  enough  to  have  just  noticed 
these  points,  in  order  to  show  that  economical  questions,  or 
such  as  relate  to  wealth  or  property,  demand  the  careful  at- 
tention of  the  historian,  inasmuch  as  they  influence  most 
powerfully  a  nation's  moral  and  political  condition,  that  is, 
in  the  highest  sense  of  the  terms,  its  welfare  or  its  mis- 
ery. (5) 

Hitherto  we  have  considered  the  history  of  a  nation's  nat- 
ural life  as  busied  with  its  institutions  and  laws ;  and  as 
tracing  their  effects  in  their  three  great  divisions  of,  1st, 
politics,  2d,  instruction  in  the  widest  sense,  and,  3d,  econ- 
omy. Yet  life,  whether  individual  or  national,  is  subject  to 
a  variety  of  irregular  influences,  such  as  originate  in  no 


40  INAUGURAL    LECTURE. 


ii  law.  Unless  the  national  will,  as  at  Sparta,  attemp 
to  absorb  into  itself  the  wills  of  individuals,  so  that  they  shal 
do  nothing,  suffer  nothing,  desire  nothing,  but  according  to 
the  bidding  of  law,  there  must  always  exist  along  with  the 
most  vigorous  positive  institutions  and  laws,  a  great  mass  of 
independent  individual  action  and  feeling,  which  cannot  be 
without  its  influence  on  the  national  virtue  and  happiness. 
To  these  spontaneous  elements  belong  science,  art,  and  lite- 
rature,  which  may  indeed  be  encouraged  by  institutions  and 
laws,  or  discouraged,  but  yet  on  the  whole  their  origin  and 
growth  in  any  given  country  has  been  owing  to  individuals 
rather  than  to  the  nation,  or  more  properly  perhaps  to  causes 
external  to  both,  to  those  causes  which  have  given  genius 
and  taste  to  some  races  of  mankind  in  remarkable  measure, 
and  have  denied  them  to  others  ;  causes  which  have  first  pre- 
pared the  fuel  ready  for  kindling,  and  then  have  sent  the 
spark  to  light  it  up  into  a  blaze.  No  man  can  say  why  the 
great  discoveries  of  science  were  made  only  at  the  time  and 
in  the  country  when  and  where  they  were  made  actually  : 
why  the  compass  was  withheld  from  the  navigation  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  but  was  already  in  existence  when  it  was 
needed  to  aid  the  genius  of  Columbus  :  why  printing  was  in- 
vented in  time  to  preserve  that  portion  of  Greek  literature 
which  still  survived  in  the  fifteenth  century,  but  was  not 
known  early  enough  to  prevent  the  irreparable  mischiefs  of 
the  Latin  storming  of  Constantinople  in  the  thirteenth  :  (6) 
why  the  steam-engine,  triumphing  over  time  and  space,  was 
denied  to  the  stirring  spirit  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  re- 
served to  display  its  wonderful  works  only  to  the  nineteenth. 
Other  influences  may  possibly  be  named  which  have  their 
effect  on  the  national  character  and  happiness  ;  but  I  may 
be  pardoned  if  in  so  vast  a  field  something  should  be  omitted 
unconsciously,  and  something  necessarily  passed  over,  not  to 
encroach  too  largely  on  your  time  and  patience.  But  enough 


INAUGURAL    LECTURE  41 

has  been  said  I  think  to  show  that  history  contains  no  mean 
treasures :  that  as  being  the  biography  of  a  nation,  it  partakes 
of  the  richness  and  variety  of  those  elements  which  make  up 
a  nation's  life.  Whatever  there  is  of  greatness  in  the  final 
cause  of  all  human  thought  and  action,  God's  glory  and  man's 
perfection,  that  is  the  measure  of  the  greatness  of  history. 
vVhatever  there  is  of  variety  and  intense  interest  in  human 
mature,  in  its  elevation,  whether  proud  as  by  nature  or  sanc- 
tified as  by  God's  grace ;  in  its  suffering,  whether  blessed  or 
unblessed,  a  martyrdom  or  a  judgment;  in  its  strange  reverses, 
in  its  varied  adventures,  in  its  yet  more  varied  powers,  its 
courage  and  its  patience,  its  genius  and  its  wisdom,  its  justice 
and  its  love,  that  also  is  the  measure  of  the  interest  and  va- 
riety of  history.  The  treasures  indeed  are  ample,  but  we 
may  more  reasonably  fear  whether  we  may  have  strength 
and  skill  to  win  them. 

I  have  thus  far  spoken  of  history  in  the  abstract ;  at  least 
of  history  so  far  as  it  relates  to  civilized  nations,  with  no  re- 
ference to  any  one  time  or  country  more  than  to  another. 
But,  as  I  said  before,  I  must  not  forget  that  my  particular 
business  is  not  history  generally,  but  modern  history ;  and 
without  going  farther  into  details  than  is  suitable  to  the  present 
occasion,  it  may  yet  be  proper,  as  we  have  considered  what 
history  in  general  has  to  offer,  so  now  to  see  also  whether 
there  is  any  peculiar  attraction  in  modern  history:  and 
whether  ancient  and  modern  history  in  the  popular  sense  of 
the  words  differ  only  in  this,  that  the  one  relates  to  events 
which  took  place  before  a  certain  period,  and  the  other  to 
events  which  have  happened  since  that  period ;  or  whether 
there  is  a  real  distinction  between  them,  grounded  upon  an 
essential  difference  in  their  nature.  If  they  differ  only  chro- 
nologically, it  is  manifest  that  the  line  which  separates  them 
is  purely  arbitrary :  and  we  might  equally  well  fix  the  limit 
of  ancient  history  at  the  fall  of  the  Babylonian  monarchy, 

4* 


42  INAUGURAL    LECTURE. 

and  embrace  the  whole  fortunes  of  Greece  and  Rome  within 
what  we  choose  to  call  modern ;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  we 
might  carry  on  ancient  history  to  the  close  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  and  place  the  beginning  of  modern  history  at  that 
memorable  period  which  witnessed  the  expulsion  of  the 
Moors  from  Spain,  the  discovery  of  America,  and,  only  a  few 
years  later,  the  Reformation. 

It  seems,  however,  that  there  is  a  real  difference  between 
ancient  and  modern  history,  which  justifies  the  limit  usually 
assigned  to  them  ;  the  fall,  namely,  of  the  western  empire  ; 
that  is  to  say,  the  fall  of  the  western  empire  separates  the 
subsequent  period  from  that  which  preceded  it  by  a  broader 
line,  so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  than  can  be  found  at  any 
other  point  either  earlier  or  later.  For  the  state  of  things 
now  in  existence,  dates  its  origin  from  the  fall  of  the  western 
empire ;  so  far  we  can  trace  up  the  fortunes  of  nations  which 
are  still  flourishing ;  history  so  far  is  the  biography  of  the 
living  ;  beyond,  it  is  but  the  biography  of  the  dead.  In  our 
own  island  we  see  this  most  clearly :  our  history  clearly  begins 
with  the  coming  over  of  the  Saxons ;  the  Britons  and  Romans 
had  lived  in  our  country,  but  they  are  not  our  fathers  ;  we  are 
connected  with  them  as  men  indeed,  but  nationally  speaking, 
the  history  of  Caesar's  invasion  has  no  more  to  do  with  us, 
than  the  natural  history  of  the  animals  which  then  inhabited 
our  forests.  We,  this  great  English  nation,  whose  race  and 
language  are  now  overrunning  the  earth  from  one  end  of  it 
to  the  other — we  were  born  when  the  white  horse  of  the 
Saxons  had  established  his  dominion  from  the  Tweed  to  the 
Tamar.  (7)  So  far  we  can  trace  our  blood,  our  language, 
the  name  and  actual  divisions  of  our  country,  the  beginnings 
of  some  of  our  institutions.  So  far  our  national  identity  ex- 
.ends,  so  far  history  is  modern,  for  it  treats  of  a  life  which 
was  then,  and  is  not  yet  extinguished. 

And  if  we  cross  the  channel,  what  is  the  case  with  our 


INAUGURAL    LECTURE.  43 

great  neighbour  nation  of  France  ?  Roman  Gaul  had  existed 
since  the  Christian  sera ;  the  origin  of  Keltic  Gaul  is  older 
than  history :  (8)  but  France  and  Frenchmen  came  into 
being  when  the  Franks  established  themselves  west  of  the 
Rhine.  Not  that  before  that  period  the  fathers  of  the  ma- 
jority of  the  actual  French  people  were  living  on  the  Elbe  or 
the  Saal ;  for  the  Franks  were  numerically  few,  and  through- 
out the  south  of  France  the  population  is  predominantly,  and 
much  more  than  predominantly,  of  Gallo-Roman  origin. 
But  Clovis  and  his  Germans  struck  root  so  deeply,  and  their 
institutions  wrought  such  changes,  that  the  identity  of  France 
cannot  be  carried  back  beyond  their  invasion  :  the  older 
elements  no  doubt  have  helped  greatly  to  characterize  the 
existing  nation  ;  but  they  cannot  be  said  by  themselves  to  be 
that  nation. 

The  essential  character  then  of  modern  history  appears  to 
be  this ;  that  it  treats  of  national  life  still  in  existence :  it 
commences  with  that  period  when  all  the  great  elements  of 
the  existing  state  of  things  had  met  together  ;  so-  that  subse- 
quent changes,  great  as  they  have  been,  have  only  combined 
or  disposed  these  same  elements  differently ;  they  have  added 
to  them  no  new  one.  By  the  great  elements  of  nationality,  I 
mean  race,  language,  institutions,  and  religion ;  and  it  will 
be  seen  that  throughout  Europe  all  these  four  may  be  traced 
up,  if  not  actually  in  every  case  to  the  fall  of  the  western 
empire,  yet  to  the  dark  period  which  followed  that  fall,  while 
in  no  case  are  all  the  four  to  be  found  united  before  it. 
Otherwise,  if  we  allow  the  two  first  of  these  elements,  without 
the  third  and  fourth,  to  constitute  national  identity,  especially 
when  combined  with  sameness  of  place,  we  must  then  say 
that  the  northern  countries  of  Europe  have  no  ancient  his- 
tory, inasmuch  as  they  have  been  inhabited  from  the  earliest 
times  by  the  same  race  speaking  what  is  radically  the  same 
language.  But  it  is  better  not  to  admit  national  identity,  till 


44  INAUGURAL   LECTURE. 

the  two  elements  of  institutions  and  religion,  or  at  any  rate 
one  of  them,  be  added  to  those  of  blood  and  language.  At 
all  events  it  cannot  be  doubted,  that  as  soon  as  the  four  are 
united,  the  national  personality  becomes  complete. 

It  cannot  be  doubted  then  that  modern  history  so  defined  is 
especially  interesting  to  us,  inasmuch  as  it  treats  only  of 
national  existence  not  yet  extinct:  it  contains,  so  to  speak,  the 
first  acts  of  a  great  drama  now  actually  in  the  process  of 
being  represented,  and  of  which  the  catastrophe  is  still  future. 
But  besides  this  personal  interest,  is  there  nothing  in  modern 
history  of  more  essential  difference  from  ancient— of  dif- 
erence  such  as  would  remain,  even  if  we  could  conceive  our- 
selves living  in  some  third  period  of  history,  when  existing 
nations  had  passed  away  like  those  which  we  now  call  ancient, 
and  when  our  modern  history  would  have  become  what  the 
history  of  Greece  and  Rome  is  to  us  ? 

Such  a  difference  does  characterize  what  we  now  call 
modern  history,  and  must  continue  to  characterize  it  forever. 
Modern  history  exhibits  a  fuller  development  of  the  human 
race,  a  richer  combination  of  its  most  remarkable  elements. 
We  ourselves  are  one  of  the  most  striking  examples  of  this. 
We  derive  scarcely  one  drop  of  our  blood  from  Roman  fathers ; 
we  are  in  our  race  strangers  to  Greece,  and  strangers  to 
Israel.  But  morally  how  much  do  we  derive  from  all  three  : 
in  this  respect  their  life  is  in  a  manner  continued  in  ours ; 
their  influences,  to  say  the  least,  have  not  perished. 

Here  then  we  have,  if  I  may  so  speak,  the  ancient  world 
still  existing,  but  with  a  new  element  added,  the  element  of 
our  English  race.  And  that  this  element  is  an  important 
one,  cannot  be  doubted  for  an  instant.  Our  English  race  is 
the  German  race ;  for  though  our  Norman  fathers  had  learned 
to  speak  a  stranger's  language,  yet  in  blood,  as  we  know, 
they  were  the  Saxons'  brethren  :  both  alike  belong  to  the 
Teutonic  or  German  stock.  (9)  Now  the  importance  of  this 


INAUGURAL    LECTURE.  45 

stock  is  plain  from  this,  that  its  intermixture  with  the  Keltic 
and  Roman  races  at  the  fall  of  the  western  empire  has 
changed  the  whole  face  of  Europe.  It  is  doubly  remarkable, 
because  the  other  elements  of  modern  history  are  derived  from 
the  ancient  world.  If  we  consider  the  Roman  empire  in  the 
fourth  century  of  the  Christian  sera,  we  shall  find  in  it  Chris- 
tianity, we  shall  find  in  it  all  the  intellectual  treasures  of 
Greece,  all  the  social  and  political  wisdom  of  Rome.  (10) 
What  was  not  there,  was  simply  the  German  race,  and  the 
peculiar  qualities  which  characterize  it.  This  one  addition 
was  of  such  power,  that  it  changed  the  character  of  the 
whole  mass :  the  peculiar  stamp  of  the  middle  ages  is  un- 
doubtedly German ;  the  change  manifested  in  the  last  three 
centuries  has  been  owing  to  the  revival  of  the  older  elements 
with  greater  power,  so  that  the  German  element  has  been 
less  manifestly  predominant.  But  that  element  still  pre- 
serves its  force,  and  is  felt  for  good  or  for  evil  in  almost 
every  country  of  the  civilized  world.  (11) 

We  will  pause  for  a  moment  to  observe  over  how  large 
a  portion  of  the  earth  this  influence  is  now  extended.  It  af- 
fects more  or  less  the  whole  west  of  Europe,  from  the  head 
of  the  Gulf  of  Bothnia  to  the  most  southern  promontory  of 
Sicily,  from  the  Oder  and  the  Adriatic  to  the  Hebrides  and 
to  Lisbon.  It  is  true  that  the  language  spoken  over  a  large 
portion  of  this  space  is  not  predominantly  German ;  but  even 
in  France,  and  Italy,  and  Spain,  the  influence  of  the  Franks, 
Burgundians,  Visigoths,  Ostrogoths,  and  Lombards,  while  it 
has  colored  even  the  language,  has  in  blood  and  institutions 
left  its  mark  legibly  and  indelibly.  Germany,  the  Low 
Countries,  Switzerland  for  the  most  part,  Denmark,  Norway, 
and  Sweden,  and  our  own  islands,  are  all  in  language,  in 
blood,  and  in  institutions,  German  most  decidedly.  But  all 
South  America  is  peopled  with  Spaniards  and  Portuguese,  all 
North  America  and  all  Australia  with  Englishmen.  I  say 


46  INAUGURAL    LECTURE. 

nothing  of  the  prospects  and  influence  of  the  German  race  in 
Africa  and  in  India  :  it  is  enough  to  say  that  half  of  Europe, 
and  all  America  and  Australia,  are  German  more  or  less 
completely,  in  race,  in  language,  or  in  institutions,  or  in  all. 

Modern  history  then  differs  from  ancient  history  in  this, 
that  while  it  preserves  the  elements  of  ancient  history  unde- 
stroyed,  it  has  added  others  to  them  ;  and  these,  as  we  have 
seen,  elements  of  no  common  power.  (12)  But  the  German 
race  is  not  the  only  one  which  has  been  thus  added ;  the 
Sclavonic  race  is  another  new  element,  which  has  overrun 
the  east  of  Europe,  as  the  German  has  overrun  the  west. 
And  when  we  consider  that  the  Sclavonic  race  wields  the 
mighty  empire  of  Russia,  we  may  believe  that  its  future  in- 
fluence on  the  condition  of  Europe  and  of  the  world  may  be 
far  greater  than  that  which  it  exercises  now. 

This  leads  us  to  a  view  of  modern  history,  which  cannot 
indeed  be  confidently  relied  on,  but  which  still  impresses  the 
mind  with  an  imagination,  if  not  with  a  conviction,  of  its 
reality.  I  mean,  that  modern  history  appears  to  be  not  only 
a  step  in  advance  of  ancient  history,  but  the  last  step ;  it  ap- 
pears to  bear  marks  of  the  fulness  of  time,  as  if  there  would 
be  no  future  history  beyond  it.  For  the  last  eighteen  hun- 
dred years,  Greece  has  fed  the  human  intellect;  Rome, 
taught  by  Greece  and  improving  upon  her  teacher,  has  been 
the  source  of  law  and  government  and  social  civilization ; 
and  what  neither  Greece  nor  Rome  could  furnish,  the  per- 
fection of  moral  and  spiritual  truth,  has  been  given  by  Chris- 
tianity. The  changes  which  have  been  wrought  have  arisen 
out  of  the  reception  of  these  elements  by  new  races ;  races 
endowed  with  such  force  of  character  that  what  was  old  in 
itself,  when  exhibited  in  them,  seemed  to  become  something 
new.  But  races  so  gifted  are  and  have  been  from  the  begin- 
ning  of  the  world  few  in  number :  the  mass  of  mankind  have 
no  such  power ;  they  either  receive  the  impression  of  foreign 


INAUGURAL    LECTURE.  47 

elements  so  completely  that  their  own  individual  character  is 
absorbed,  and  they  take  their  whole  being  from  without ;  or 
being  incapable  of  taking  in  higher  elements,  they  dwindle 
away  when  brought  into  the  presence  of  a  more  powerful  life, 
and  become  at  last  extinct  altogether.  Now  looking  anxiously 
round  the  world  for  any  new  races  which  may  receive  the 
seed  (so  to  speak)  of  our  present  history  into  a  kindly  yet  a 
vigorous  soil,  and  may  reproduce  it,  the  same  and  yet  new, 
for  a  future  period,  we  know  not  where  such*  are  to  be  found. 
Some  appear  exhausted,  others  incapable,  and  yet  the  sur- 
face of  the  whole  globe  is  known  to  us.  The  Roman  colonies 
along  the  banks  of  the  Rhine  and  Danube  looked  out  on  the 
country  beyond  those  rivers  as  we  look  up  at  the  stars,  and 
actually  see  with  our  eyes  a  world  of  which  we  know  nothing. 
The  Romans  knew  that  there  was  a  vast  portion  of  the  earth 
which  they  did  not  know ;  how  vast  it  might  be  was  a  part 
of  its  mysteries.  But  to  us  all  is  explored  :  imagination  can 
hope  for  no  new  Atlantic  island  to  realize  the  vision  of  Plato's 
Critias :  no  new  continent  peopled  by  youthful  races,  the 
destined  restorers  of  our  worn-out  generations.  Everywhere 
the  search  has  been  made,  and  the  report  has  been  received ; 
we  have  the  full  amount  of  earth's  resources  before  us,  and 
they  seem  inadequate  to  supply  life  for  a  third  period  of  hu- 
man history. 

I  am  well  aware  that  to  state  this  as  a  matter  of  positive 
belief  would  be  the  extreme  of  presumption ;  there  may  be 
nations  reserved  hereafter  for  great  purposes  of  God's  provi- 
dence, whoss  fitness  for  their  appointed  work  will  not  betray 
itself  till  the  work  and  the  time  for  doing  it  be  come.  There 
was  a  period  perhaps  when  the  ancestors  of  the  Athenians 
were  to  be  no  otherwise  distinguished  from  their  barbarian 

*  What  may  oe  done  hereafter  by  the  Sclavonic  nations,  is  not  prejudged 
by  this  statement ;  because  the  Sclavonic  nations  are  elements  of  our  actual 
history,  although  their  powers  may  be  as  yet  only  partially  developed. 


48  INAUGURAL    LECTURE 

neighbours  than  by  some  finer  taste  in  the  decorations  of  their 
arms,  and  something  of  a  loftier  spirit  in  the  songs  which  told 
of  the  exploits  of  their  warriors ;  and  when  Aristotle  heard 
that  Rome  had  been  taken  by  the  Gauls,  he  knew  not  that 
its  total  destruction  would  have  been  a  greater  loss  to  man- 
kind than  the  recent  overthrow  of  Veii.  But  without  any 
presumptuous  confidence,  if  there  be  any  signs,  however  un- 
certain, that  we  are  living  in  the  latest  period  of  the  world's 
history,  that  no  other  races  remain  behind  to  perform  what 
we  have  neglected  or  to  restore  what  we  have  ruined,  then 
indeed  the  interest  of  modern  history  does  become  intense, 
and  the  importance  of  not  wasting  the  time  still  left  to  us 
may  well  be  called  incalculable.  When  an  army's  last  re- 
serve has  been  brought  into  action,  every  single  soldier  knows 
that  he  must  do  his  duty  to  the  utmost ;  that  if  he  cannot  win 
the  battle  now,  he  must  lose  it.  So  if  our  existing  nations 
are  the  last  reserve  of  the  world,  its  fate  may  be  said  to  be 
in  their  hands — God's  work  on  earth  will  be  left  undone  if 
they  do  not  do  it. 

But  our  future  course  must  be  hesitating  or  mistaken,  if 
we  do  not  know  what  course  has  brought  us  to  the  point 
where  we  are  at  present.  Otherwise,  the  simple  fact  thaf 
after  so  many  years  of  trial  the  world  has  made  no  greater 
progress  than  it  has,  must  impress  our  minds  injuriously ; 
either  making  us  despair  of  doing  what  our  fathers  have  not 
done,  or  if  we  do  not  despair,  then  it  may  make  us  unreason- 
ably presumptuous,  as  if  we  could  do  more  than  had  been 
done  by  other  generations,  because  we  were  wiser  than  they 
or  better.  But  history  forbids  despair  without  authorizing 
vanity :  it  explains  why  more  has  not  been  done  by  our  fore- 
fathers :  it  shows  the  difficulties  which  beset  them,  rendering 
success  impossible ;  while  it  records  the  greatness  of  their 
efforts,  which  we  cannot  hope  to  surpass.  But  without  sur- 
passing, perhaps  without  equalling  their  efforts,  we  may 


INAUGURAL    LECTURE.  49 

learn  by  their  experience  to  avoid  their  difficulties :  Napoleon 
crossed  the  Alps  with  scarcely  the  loss  of  a  man,  while  Han- 
nibal left  behind  him  nearly  half  his  army ;  yet  Napoleon 
was  not  a  greater  man  than  Hannibal,  nor  was  his  enter- 
prise conducted  with  greater  ability.  (13)  Two  things  we 
ought  to  learn  from  history ;  one,  that  we  are  not  in  our- 
selves  superior  to  our  fathers ;  another,  that  we  are  shame- 
fully and  monstrously  inferior  to  them,  if  we  do  not  advance 
beyond  them. 

And  now  if  the  view  here  taken  of  the  greatness,  first  of 
all  history,  and  then  especially  of  modern  history,  be  correct, 
it  will  at  once  show  in  what  way  the  professorship  which  I 
have  the  honor  to  hold,  may  be  made  productive  of  some 
benefit  to  the  University.  It  is  certainly  no  affected  humility, 
but  the  very  simple  truth,  to  acknowledge,  that  of  many  large 
and  fruitful  districts  in  the  vast  territory  of  modern  history  I 
possess  only  the  most  superficial  knowledge,  of  some  I  am  all 
but  totally  ignorant.  I  could  but  ill  pretend  to  guide  others 
where  I  should  be  at  a  loss  myself:  and  though  many  might 
possess  a  knowledge  far  surpassing  mine,  yet  the  mere  ordi- 
nary length  of  human  life  renders  it  impossible  for  any  one 
to  have  that  profound  acquaintance  with  every  part  of  modern 
history  in  detail,  which  might  enable  him  to  impart  a  full 
understanding  of  it  to  others.  But  yet  it  may  be  possible, 
and  this  indeed  is  my  hope,  to  encourage  others  to  study  it, 
to  point  out  how  much  is  to  be  done,  and  to  suggest  some 
rules  for  doing  it.  And  if,  in  addition  to  this,  I  could  myself 
exemplify  these  rules  in  working  at  some  one  particular  por- 
tion of  history,  I  should  have  accomplished  all  that  I  can 
venture  to  anticipate.  Meanwhile  we  have  in  this  place  an 
immense  help  towards  the  study  of  modern  history,  in  our 
familiar  acquaintance  with  the  history  of  the  ancient  world, 
or  at  any  rate  with  the  works  of  its  greatest  historians.  The 
importance  of  this  preparation  is  continually  brought  to  my 

5 


50  INAUGURAL    LECTURE. 

mind  by  observing  the  bad  effects  of  the  want  of  it  in  those 
who  have  not  enjoyed  our  advantages  :  on  the  other  hand, 
here,  as  in  other  matters,  advantages  neglected  are  but  OUT 
shame,  and  if  we  here  are  ignorant  of  modern  history,  we 
are  I  think  especially  inexcusable. 

I  have  detained  you  I  fear  too  long,  and  yet  have  left  much 
unsaid,  and  have  compressed  some  part  of  what  I  have  said 
into  limits  which  I  am  afraid  have  scarcely  allowed  it  to  be 
stated  intelligibly.  This  defect  however  it  may  be  possible 
to  remedy  on  future  occasions,  when  much  that  has  been 
now  put  summarily  may  be  developed  more  fully.  For 
other  defects  not  equally  within  my  power  to  remedy,  I  have 
only  in  all  sincerity  to  request  your  indulgence.  Deeply  as 
I  value  the  privilege  of  addressing  you  as  one  of  the  profes- 
sors of  this  University — and  there  is  no  privilege  which  I 
more  value,  no  public  reward  or  honour  which  could  be  to  me 
so  welcome — I  feel  no  less  keenly  the  responsibility  which  it 
involves,  and  the  impossibility  of  discharging  its  duties  in 
any  manner  proportioned  to  its  importance,  or  to  my  own 
sense  of  what  it  requires.  (14) 


NOTES 


INAUGURAL  LECTURE. 


NOTE  1.— Page  25. 

*  *  *  "  The  works  of  great  poets  require  to  be  approached  at  the 
outset  with  a  full  faith  in  their  excellence  :  the  reader  must  be  con- 
vinced that  if  he  does  not  fully  admire  them,  it  is  his  fault  and  not 
theirs.  This  is  no  more  than  a  just  tribute  to  their  reputation  ;  in 
other  words,  it  is  the  proper  modesty  of  an  individual  thinking  his 
own  unpractised  judgment  more  likely  to  be  mistaken  than  the  con- 
curring voice  of  the  public.  And  it  is  the  property  of  the  greatest 
works  of  genius  in  other  departments  also,  that  a  first  view  of  them 
is  generally  disappointing ;  and  if  a  man  were  foolish  enough  to  go 
away  trusting  more  to  his  own  hasty  impressions  than  to  the  de- 
liberate judgment  of  the  world,  he  would  remain  continually  as 
blind  and  ignorant  as  he  was  at  the  beginning.  The  cartoons  of 
Raphael,  at  Hampton  Court  Palace,  the  frescoes  of  the  same  great 
painter  in  the  galleries  of  the  Vatican  at  Rome,  the  famous  statues 
of  the  Laocoon  arid  the  Apollo  Belvidere,  and  the  Church  of  St. 
Peter  at  Rome,  the  most  magnificent  building  perhaps  in  the  world 
— all  alike  are  generally  found  to  disappoint  a  person  on  his  first 
view  of  them.  But  let  him  be  sure  that  they  are  excellent,  and 
that  he  only  wants  the  knowledge  and  the  taste  to  appreciate  them 
properly,  and  every  succeeding  sight  of  them  will  open  his  eyes 
more  and  more,  till  he  learns  to  admire  them,  not  indeed  as  much  as 
they  deserve,  but  so  much  as  greatly  to  enrich  and  enlarge  his  own 
mind,  by  becoming  acquainted  with  such  perfect  beauty.  So  it  is 
with  great  poets :  they  must  be  read  often  and  studied  reverently, 
before  an  unpractised  mind  can  gain  any  thing  like  an  adequate 
notion  of  their  excellence.  Meanwhile,  the  process  is  in  itself 


52  NOTES 

most  useful :  it  is  a  good  thing  to  doubt  our  own  wisdom,  it  is  a 
good  thing  to  believe,  it  is  a  good  thing  to  admire.  By  continually 
looking  upwards  our  minds  will  themselves  grow  upwards  ;  and  as  a 
man,  by  indulging  in  habits  of  scorn  and  contempt  for  others,  is  sure 
to  descend  to  the  level  of  what  he  despises,  so  the  opposite  habits 
of  admiration  and  enthusiastic  reverence  for  excellence  impart  to 
ourselves  a  portion  of  the  qualities  which  we  admire  ;  and  here,  as 
in  every  thing  else,  humility  is  the  surest  path  to  exaltation." 

Dr.  Arnold's  Preface  to  'Poetry  of  Common  Life.' 


NOTE  2. — Page  31. 

In  one  of  his  *  travelling  journals,'  Dr.  Arnold  writes  : 
"  This  is  the  Canton  Uri,  one  of  the  Wald  Staaten  or  Forest 
Cantons,  which  were  the  original  germ  of  the  Swiss  confederacy. 
But  Uri,  like  Sparta,  has  to  answer  the  question,  what  has  mankind 
gained  over  and  above  the  ever  precious  example  of  noble  deeds, 
from  Murgarten,  Sempach,  or  Thermopylae.  What  the  world  has 
gained  by  Salamis  and  Plataea,  and  by  Zama,  is  on  the  other  hand 
no  question,  any  more  than  it  ought  to  be  a  question  what  the  world 
has  gained  by  the  defeat  of  Philip's  armada,  or  by  Trafalgar  and 
Waterloo.  But  if  a  nation  only  does  great  deeds  that  it  may  live, 
and  does  not  show  some  worthy  object  for  which  it  has  lived — and 
Uri  and  Switzerland  have  shown  but  too  little  of  any  such — then 
our  sympathy  with  the  great  deeds  of  their  history  can  hardly  go 
beyond  the  generation  by  which  those  deeds  were  performed  ;  and 
I  cannot  help  thinking  of  the  mercenary  Swiss  of  Novara  and  Ma- 
rignano,  and  of  the  oppression  exercised  over  the  Italian  bailiwicks 
and  the  Pays  de  Vaud,  and  all  the  tyrannical  exclusiveness  of  these 
little  barren  oligarchies,  as  much  as  of  the  heroic  deeds  of  the  three 
men,  Tell  and  his  comrades,  or  of  the  self-devotion  of  my  namesake 
of  Winkelried,  when  at  Sempach  he  received  into  his  breast  *  a 
sheaf  of  Austrian  spears.'  " 

Life  and  Correspondence :  Appendix  C,  No.  ix 

He,  too,  of  battle-martyrs  chief! 
Who,  to  recall  his  daunted  peers» 
For  victory  shaped  an  open  space. 


TO    INAUGURAL   LECTURE.  53 

By  gathering  with  a  wide  embrace, 
Into  his  single  breast  a  sheaf 
Of  fatal  Austrian  spears."* 

Wordsworth's  Poetical  Works,  vol.  iv.  p.  147. 

In  his  History  of  Rome,  (ch.  xxxvii.,)  Dr.  Arnold  speaks  of  a 
state  of  society  where  patriotism  becomes  impossible — the  inner 
life  being  so  exhausted  as  to  inspire  the  citizens  (of  the  Greek  com- 
monwealth in  their  decline)  with  neither  respect  nor  attachment. 

NOTE  3.— Page  35. 

"  These  '  high  commissioners,'  (under  the  Terentilian  law,)  *  De- 
cemviri legibus  scribendis,'  were  like  the  Greek  vonoQirai,  or  in  the 
language  of  Thucydides,  (viii.  67,)  which  exactly  expresses  the  ob- 
ject of  the  law,  &IKCL  avSpas  (\iadat  |uyypa0£aj  auro/cparopaj — Ka(?  '6  TI  apicrTa 

f)  Tr6\ts  olKrjfferat.  We  are  so  accustomed  to  distinguish  between  a 
constitution  and  a  code  of  laws,  that  we  have  no  one  word  which 
will  express  both,  or  convey  a  full  idea  of  the  wide  range  of  the 
commissioners'  powers ;  which  embraced  at  once  the  work  of  the 
French  constituent  assembly,  and  that  of  Napoleon,  when  he  drew 
up  his  code.  But  this  comprehensiveness  belonged  to  the  character 
of  the  ancient  lawgivers;  a  far  higher  term  than  legislators,  al- 
though etymologically  the  same  ;  they  provided  for  the  whole  life 
of  their  citizens  in  all  its  relations,  social,  civil,  political,  moral,  and 

religious." 

Arnold's  History  of  Rome,  vol.  i.  228,  note. 

*  "  The  Greeks  had,  as  we  have,  their  aypafos  vtpos,  or  un- 
written law  of  reason  and  conscience  :  but  they  had  no  other  written 
law,  vdpos  ycypa/i/if'voj,  than  the  civil  law  of  each  particular  state ; 
and  by  this  law  not  only  their  civil  but  their  moral  and  religious 
duties  also  were  in  ordinary  cases  regulaf  ed.  It  was  the  sole  au- 
thority by  which  the  several  virtues  could  be  enforced  on  the  mass 
of  mankind  ;  and  to  weaken  this  sanction  in  public  opinion,  by  re- 
presenting the  law  as  a  thing  mutable  and  subject  to  the  popular 
judgment,  instead  of  being  its  guide  and  standard,  was  to  leave  men 

*  "  Arnold  Winkelried,  at  the  battle  of  Sempach,  broke  an  Austrian  phalanx  in  this 
manner.  The  event  is  one  of  the  most  famous  in  the  annals  of  Swiss  heroism ;  and 
pictures  and  prints  of  it  are  frequent  throughout  the  country." 

5* 


54  NOTES 

with  no  other  law  than  their  own  reason  and  conscience ;  a  state 
for  which  even  Christians  are  not  yet  sufficiently  advanced,  with  all 
the  lights  and  helps  that  their  reason  and  conscience  ought  to  have 
derived  from  the  truths  and  motives  of  the  gospel.  In  short,  the 
vd/jios  yeypappivos  with  the  Greeks  corresponded  at  once  to  the  law  of 
the  land,  and  to  the  revealed  law  of  God  in  Christian  countries ; 
and  if  both  these  laws  amongst  us  had  only  the  same  authority  of 
human  institution  and  custom  ;  if  the  one  could  not  be  altered  with- 
out lessening  our  veneration  for  the  other ;  who  would  not  say  with 
Cleon,  that  it  was  far  better  to  endure  bad  political  institutions  than 
to  destroy  the  only  generally  understood  sanction  of  moral  duty,  and 
to  leave  the  mass  of  mankind  with  no  law  but  that  of  their  own 
minds,  or,  as  it  would  too  often  be,  their  own  prejudices  and  pas- 
sions?" 

Arnold's  Thucydides,  vol.  i.  388,  note. 

NOTE  4. — Page  38. 

*  *  *  "  I  agree  with  Carlyle  in  thinking  that  they  (the  Liberal 
party)  greatly  over-estimate  Bentham,  and  also  that  they  overrate 
the  political  economists  generally ;  not  that  I  doubt  the  ability  of 
those  writers,  or  the  truth  of  their  conclusions,  as  far  as  regards 
their  own  science  ;  but  I  think  that  the  summum  bonum  of  their 
science,  and  of  human  life,  are  not  identical ;  and,  therefore,  many 
questions  in  which  free  trade  is  involved,  and  the  advantages  of 
large  capital,  &c.,  although  perfectly  simple  in  an  economical  point 
of  view,  become,  when  considered  politically,  very  complex ;  and 
the  economical  good  is  very  often,  from  a  neglect  of  other  points, 
made  in  practice  a  direct  social  evil." 

"  Life  and  Correspondence,"  letter  Jan.  23, 1840.    Am.  edit.  p.  367. 

*  *  *  "  It  is  right — it  is  absolutely  necessary  at  this  day — that  all 
who  value  their  country  should  raise  a  warning  voice,  whether  in 
the  legislature,  or  in  the  pulpit,  or  in  schools,  or  in  books,  against  the 
theory  which  would  make  this  accumulation  ('  the  augmentation  of 
comforts  and  enjoyments,  and  all  the  other  elements  which  make 
up  an  accumulation  of  national  good  out  of  the  separate  good  of  in- 
dividuals and  of  families')  the  end  of  society  and  the  primary  obli- 
gation of  the  citizen.     Such  a  theory  has  now  gnawed  its  way  not 


TO    INAUGURAL    LECTURE.  55 

only  into  all  our  political  philosophy  but  into  our  public  legislation 
and  private  practice,  till  it  has  degraded  society  from  its  highest 
functions,  has  sensualized  and  animalized  its  character,  has  intro- 
duced a  chaos  of  conflicting  elements  into  our  system  of  laws,  has 
secretly  dissolved  the  ties  which  bound  us  to  each  other  as  well  as 
to  our  sovereign,  and  has  extinguished  the  noblest  instincts  of  pri- 
vate as  of  public  life.  It  must  be  thus  whenever  expediency  is 
made  the  rule  of  action,  especially  of  political  action." 

Sewell's  "  Christian  Politics*"  p.  160 

NOTE  5. — Page  39. 

*  *  *  "  There  are  few  points  of  more  importance  in  the  history 
of  a  nation  :  the  law  of  property,  of  real  property  especially,  and  a 
knowledge  of  all  the  circumstances  of  its  tenure  and  divisions, 
would  throw  light  upon  more  than  the  physical  condition  of  a  peo- 
ple ;  it  would  furnish  the  key  to  some  of  the  main  principles  preva- 
lent in  their  society.     For  instance,  the  feudal  notion  that  property 
in  land  confers  jurisdiction,  and  the  derivation  of  property  either 
from  the  owner's  own  sword,  or  from  the  gift  of  the  stronger  chief 
whose  sword  he  had  aided,  not  from  the  regular  assignment  of  so- 
ciety, has  most  deeply  affected  the  political  and  social  state  of  the 
nations  of  modern  Europe.     At  Rome,  as  elsewhere  among  the 
free  commonwealths  of  the  ancient  world,  property  was  derived 
from  political  rights  rather  than  political  rights  from  property  ;  and 
the  division  and  assignation  of  lands  to  the  individual  members  of  the 
state  by  the  deliberate  act  of  the  whole  community,  was  familiarly 
recognised  as  the  manner  in  which  such  property  was  most  regu- 
larly acquired." 

History  of  Rome,  chap.  xiv.  vol.  i.  p.  266. 

*  *  *  "As  society  advances  in  true  civilization,  its  supremacy 
over  all  individual  rights  of  property  becomes  more  fully  recognised  : 
and  it  is  understood  that  we  are  but  stewards  of  our  possessions 
with  regard  to  the  commonwealth  of  which  we  are  members,  as 
well  as  with  respect  to  God." 

History  of  Rome,  chap.  xiv.  vol.  i.  p.  264. 

*  *  "  In  order  to  point  out  the  restrictions  which  exist,  and  which 
I  contend  are  useless  and  prejudicial,  I  shall  be  obliged  f.n  refer 


56  .  NOTES 

shortly  to  the  origin  and  history  of  the  mortmain  laws  ;  and  I  trusl 
I  shall'  be  able  to  show  from  that  reference,  that  restrictions  which 
might  be  beneficial  in  the  fifteenth,  are  altogether  the  reverse  in  the 
nineteenth  century.  In  England,  I  maintain,  restrictions  in  mort- 
main originated  in  the  natural  dread  which  the  great  feudal  barons, 
and  each  successive  king,  as  the  great  landowner  in  the  kingdom, 
entertained  of  the  growing  power  and  wealth  of  the  monastic  body  : 
they  were  imposed,  not  from  any  political- economic  notion  that  it 
was  unwise  to  tie  up  land  in  perpetuity,  but  because,  as  is  invariably 
alleged  in  the  preamble  of  those  acts,  such  alienations  to  religious 
bodies  deprived  the  lords  of  the  advantages  of  tenure,  and  weakened 
the  military  defences  of  the  country.  Take  the  first  and  most  im- 
portant of  those  acts,  the  9th  of  Henry  III.  ;  it  was  confined  in 
terms  to  the  regular  clergy,  and  merely  restrained  the  tenants  of 
other  lords  from  transferring  their  tenure  by  a  fictitious  process  to 
religious  houses.  And  so  far  am  I  from  saying  that  this  law,  or 
the  laws  passed  in  the  reign  of  Edward  I.  and  subsequent  rcigns» 
were  uncalled  for,  that  I  look  on  it  as  a  matter  of  deep  regret  that 
the  monastic  institutions  in  those  ages  were  not  still  more  stringently 
supervised  and  guarded  against,  so  that  their  wholesale  and  fatal 
destruction  at  the  Reformation  might  have  been  averted.  But  I 
contend  that  restrictions  which  were  useful  then,  are  useful  no 
longer.  What  reasonable  ground  of  fear  is  there  now  of  a  fictitious 
title  being  set  up  by  religious  houses  to  lands  which  donors  wish  to 
grant  to  them  1  What  reason  is  there  now  to  apprehend  detriment 
to  the  lords  or  danger  to  the  state,  from  tenants  setting  up  crosses 
in  their  fields  in  order  to  avoid  performing  their  proper  military 
service  ?  I  think  it  so  obvious,  that  no  argument  in  favor  of  mort- 
main laws  can  be  drawn  from  enactments  passed  previous  to  the 
Reformation,  from  a  state  of  society  ecclesiastically  and  politically 
so  different  from  our  own,  that  I  shall  not  weary  the  House  by  any 
farther  consideration  of  them." 

Lord  John  Manners'  Speech  on  the  Laws  of  Mortmain, 

in  the  House  of  Commons,  Aug.  1, 1843. 

NOTE  6. — Page  40. 

*  *  *  "  Photius,  who  was  patriarch  of  Constantinople  in  the  latter 
half  of  the  ninth  century,  L.-VS  left  a  sort  of  catalogue  raisonne,  t* 


TO    INAUGURAL    LECTURE.  57 

rather  an  abstract,  of  the  various  books  which  he  was  in  the  habit 
of  reading.  In  this  work,  which  he  called  his  library,  there  are 
preserved  abridgments  of  many  books  which  would  otherwise  have 
been  altogether  lost  to  us.  *  *  *  *  So  capricious  is  the  chance 
which  has  preserved  some  portions  of  ancient  history  from  oblivion; 
while  it  has  utterly  destroyed  all  record  of  others.  But  Photius's 
library,  compiled  in  the  ninth  century,  shows  what  treasures  of 
Greek  literature  were  then  existing  at  Constantinople,  which  in  the 
course  of  the  six  following  centuries  perished  irrecoverably.  In 
this  respect  the  French  and  Venetian  conquest  in  the  thirteenth 
century  was  far  more  destructive  than  the  Turkish  conquest  in  the 

fifteenth." 

History  of  Rome,  ch.  xxxv.  vol.  ii.  p.  408,  note. 

NOTE  7.— Page  42. 

*  *  *  La  colonie  Saxonne  "  recevait  des  Bretons,  ses  notes, 
toutes  les  choses  necessaires  a  la  vie  ;  plusieurs  fois  elle  combattit 
vaillamment  et  fidelement  pour  eux,  et  leva  contre  les  Pictes  et  les 
Scots  son  etendard  ou  etait  peint  un  cheval  blanc,  espece  d'embleme 
conforme  au  nom  de  ses  deux  chefs,"  Henghist  et  Horsa.* 

Thierry,  Hist,  de  la  Conquete  de  VAngleterre,  liv.  ler,  p.  44. 

NOTE  8.— Page  43. 

"  We  can  trace  with  great  distinctness  the  period  at  which  the 
Kelts  became  familiarly  known  to  the  Greeks.  Herodotus  only 
knew  of  them  from  the  Phoanician  navigators :  Thucydides  does 
not  name  them  at  all :  Xenophon  only  notices  them  as  forming  part 
of  the  auxiliary  force  sent  by  Dionysius  to  the  aid  of  Lacedaemon. 
Isocrates  makes  no  mention  of  them.  But  immediately  afterwards 
their  incursions  into  central  and  southern  Italy,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  into  the  countries  between  the  Danube  and  Macedonia  on  the 
other,  had  made  them  objects  of  general  interest  and  curiosity ;  and 
Aristotle  notices  several  points  in  their  habits  and  character,  in  dif- 
ferent parts  of  his  philosophical  works." 

History  of  Rome,  vol.  i.  p.  491,  note. 

*  •  L'orthographie  saxonne  est  Hengist.  Hcngist  signifie  un  e  talon,  et  Aw*.,  al. 
hros,  un  cheval/ 


58  NOTES 

In  the  fourth  century  before  the  Christian  era,  "  the  Kelts  or 
Gauls  broke  through  the  thin  screen  which  had  hitherto  concealed 
them  from  sight,  and  began  for  the  first  time  to  take  their  part  in 
the  great  drama  of  the  nations.  For  nearly  two  hundred  years 
they  continued  to  fill  Europe  and  Asia  with  the  terror  of  their 
name  :  but  it  was  a  passing  tempest,  and  if  useful  at  all,  it  was  use- 
ful only  to  destroy.  The  Gauls  could  communicate  no  essential 
points  of  human  character  in  which  other  races  might  be  deficient ; 
they  could  neither  improve  the  intellectual  state  of  mankind,  nor  its 
social  and  political  relations.  When,  therefore,  they  had  done  their 
appointed  work  of  havoc,  they  were  doomed  to  be  themselves  ex- 
tirpated, or  to  be  lost  amidst  nations  of  greater  creative  and  construc- 
tive power ;  nor  is  there  any  race  which  has  left  fewer  traces  of 
itself  in  the  character  and  institutions  of  modern  civilization." 

History  of  Rome,  vol.  i.  chap.  xxii.  p.  499. 


NOTE  9. — Page  44. 

The  Saxons,  Danes,  and  Normans,  by  whom  England  was  suc- 
cessively invaded,  were  "  all  originally  of  the  same  race,  but  so 
altered  by  their  various  fortunes,  that  the  Danish  invaders  had  no 
national  sympathy  with  the  Anglo-Saxons  of  Alfred  and  Ethelred ; 
and  the  Normans,  having  changed  their  language  as  well  as  their 
habits,  were  regarded  both  by  Saxons  and  Danes  as  not  only  a  dif- 
ferent nation,  but  actually  a  different  race.  The  historians  of  Den- 
mark speak  of  the  Norman  conquerors  of  England  as  a  people  of 
Roman  or  Latin  race,  and  deplore  the  conquest  as  a  triumph  of  the 
Roman  blood  and  language  over  the  Teutonic." 

Arnold's  Thitcydides,\ol.  ii.  p.  55,  note. 

NOTE  10. — Page  45. 

*  *  *  (Rome)  "  Of  earthly  sights  rptrov  alri — Athens  and  Jerusalem 
4re  the  other  two — the  three  people  of  God's  election,  two  for  things 
Cemporal,  and  one  for  things  eternal.  Yet  even  in  the  things  eter- 
nal they  were  allowed  to  minister.  Greek  cultivation  and  Roman 
polity  prepared  men  for  Christianity.  *  *  " 

Life  and  Correspondence,  Appendix  C,  No.  ix.  6. 


TO    INAUGURAL   LECTURE.  59 


NOTE  11.— Page  45. 

*  *  *  "  The  river  itself  (the  Rhine)  was  the  frontier  of  the  (Roman) 
empire — the  limit  as  it  were  of  two  worlds,  that  of  Roman  laws  and 
nustoms,  and  that  of  German.     Far  before  us  lay  the  land  of  our 
Saxon  and  Teutonic  forefathers — the  land  uncorrupted  by  Roman 
or  any  other  mixture ;  the  birth-place  of  the  most  moral  races  of 
men  that  the  world  has  yet  seen — of  the  soundest  laws — the  least 
violent  passions,  and  the  fairest   domestic  and   civil  virtues.     I 
thought  of  that  memorable*  defeat  of  Varus  and  his  three  legions, 
which  forever  confined  the  Romans  to  the  western  side  of  the 
Rhine,  and  preserved  the  Teutonic  nation — the  regenerating  ele- 
ment in  modern  Europe — safe  and  free." 

Life  and  Correspondence,  Appendix  C,  No.  iii.  1. 

NOTE  12.— Page  46. 

In  his  edition  of  Thucydides,  Dr.  Arnold  has  taken  another  view 
of  the  divisions  of  history,  and  lays  great  stress  upon  what  he  re- 
gards as  "  a  more  sensible,  a  more  philosophical  division  of  history 
than  that,  which  is  commonly  adopted,  of  ancient  and  modern." 
"  We  shall  see,"  he  adds,  "  that  there  is  in  fact  an  ancient  and  a 
modern  period  in  the  history  of  every  people  ;  the  ancient  differing, 
and  the  modern  in  many  essential  points  agreeing,  with  that  in 
which  we  now  live.  Thus,  the  largest  portion  of  that  history  which 
we  commonly  call  ancient  is  practically  modern,  as  it  describes 
society  in  a  stage  analogous  to  that  in  which  it  now  is  ;  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  much  of  what  is  called  modern  history  is  practically 
ancient,  as  it  relates  to  a  state  of  things  which  has  passed  away. 
Thucydides  and  Xenophon,  the  orators  of  Athens,  and  the  philoso- 
phers, speak  a  wisdom  more  applicable  to  us  politically  than  the 
wisdom  of  even  our  own  countrymen  who  lived  in  the  middle  ages  ; 
and  their  position,  both  intellectual  and  political,  more  nearly  re- 
sembled our  own." 

Essay  on  the  Progress  of  Society,  Appendix  i.  vol.  i.  of  Thucydides. 

*  "  This,  and  the  defeat  of  the  Moors  by  Charles  Mattel,  he  used  to  rank  as  the  two 
most  important  battles  in  the  world." 


60  NOTES 

The  subject  is  also  referred  to  in  the  preface  to  vol.  iii.  as  fol- 
lows :  "  In  conclusion,  I  must  beg  to  repeat  what  I  have  said  before, 
that  the  period  to  which  the  work  of  Thucydides  refers  belongs 
properly  to  modern  and  not  to  ancient  history ;  and  it  is  this  cir- 
cumstance, over  and  above  the  great  ability  of  the  historian  himself, 
which  makes  it  so  peculiarly  deserving  of  onr  study.  The  state  of 
Greece  from  Pericles  to  Alexander,  fully  described  to  us  as  it  is  in 
the  works  of  the  great  contemporary  historians,  poets,  orators,  and 
philosophers,  affords  a  political  lesson  perhaps  more  applicable  to 
our  own  times,  if  taken  all  together,  than  any  other  portion  of  his- 
tory which  can  be  named  anterior  to  the  eighteenth  century. 
Where  Thucydides,  in  his  reflections  on  the  bloody  dissensions  at 
Corcyra,  notices  the  decay  and  extinction  of  the  simplicity  of  old 
times,  he  marks  the  great  transition  from  ancient  history  to  modern, 
the  transition  from  an  age  of  feeling  to  one  of  reflection,  from  a 
period  of  ignorance  and  credulity  to  one  of  inquiry  and  scepticism. 
Now  such  a  transition  took  place  in  part  in  the  sixteenth  century  ; 
the  period  of  the  Reformation,  when  compared  with  the  ages  pre- 
ceding it,  was  undoubtedly  one  of  inquiry  and  reflection.  But  still 
it  was  an  age  of  strong  feeling  and  of  intense  belief;  the  human 
mind  cleared  a  space  for  itself  vigorously  within  a  certain  circle ; 
but  except  in  individual  cases,  and  even  those  scarcely  avowed, 
there  were  still  acknowledged  limits  of  authority,  which  inquiry 
had  not  yet  ventured  to  question.  The  period  of  Roman  civiliza- 
tion from  the  times  of  the  Gracchi  to  those  of  the  Antonines,  was 
in  this  respect  far  more  completely  modern ;  and  accordingly  this 
is  one  of  the  periods  of  history  which  we  should  do  well  to  study 
most  carefully.  But  unfortunately  our  information  respecting  it  is 
much  scantier  than  in  the  case  of  the  corresponding  portion  of 
Greek  history ;  the  writers,  generally  speaking,  are  greatly  inferior ; 
and  in  freedom  of  inquiry  no  greater  range  was  or  could  be  taken 
than  that  which  the  mind  of  Greece  had  reached  already.  And  in 
point  of  political  experience,  we  are  even  at  this  hour  scarcely  on 
a  level  with  the  statesmen  of  the  age  of  Alexander.  Mere  lapse 
of  years  confers  here  no  increase  of  knowledge ;  four  thousand 
years  have  furnished  the  Asiatic  with  scarcely  any  thing  that  de- 
serves the  name  of  political  experience ;  two  thousand  years  since 
the  fall  of  Carthage  have  furnished  the  African  with  absolutely 


TO    INAUGURAL    LECTURE.  61 

nothing.  Even  in  Europe  and  in  America,  it  would  not  be  easy  now 
to  collect  such  a  treasure  of  experience  as  the  constitutions  of  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty-three  commonwealths  along  the  various  coasts  of  the 
Mediterranean  afforded  to  Aristotle.  There  he  might  study  the  in- 
stitutions of  various  races  derived  from  various  sources :  every 
possible  variety  of  external  position,  of  national  character,  of  posi- 
tive law ;  agricultural  states  and  commercial,  military  powers  and 
maritime,  wealthy  countries  and  poor  ones,  monarchies,  aristocracies, 
and  democracies,  with  every  imaginable  form  and  combination  of 
each  and  all ;  states  overpeopled  and  underpeopled,  old  and  new,  in 
every  circumstance  of  advance,  maturity,  and  decline.  So  rich  was 
the  experience  which  Aristotle  enjoyed,  but  which  to  us  is  only  at- 
tainable mediately  and  imperfectly  through  his  other  writings ; 
his  own  record  of  all  these  commonwealths,  as  well  as  all  other 
information  concerning  the  greatest  part  of  them,  having  unhappily 
perished.  Nor  was  the  moral  experience  of  the  age  of  Greek 
civilization  less  complete.  By  moral  experience  I  mean  an  ac- 
quaintance with  the  whole  compass  of  those  questions  which  relate 
to  the  metaphysical  analysis  of  man's  nature  and  faculties,  and  to 
the  practical  object  of  his  being.  This  was  derived  from  the  strong 
critical  and  inquiring  spirit  of  the  Greek  sophists  and  philosophers, 
and  from  the  unbounded  freedom  which  they  enjoyed.  In  mere 
metaphysical  research  the  schoolmen  were  indefatigable  and  bold, 
but  in  moral  questions  there  was  an  authority  which  restrained 
them  :  among  Christians,  the  notions  of  duty  and  of  virtue  must  be 
assumed  as  beyond  dispute.  But  not  the  wildest  extravagance  of 
atheistic  wickedness  in  modern  times  can  go  farther  than  the 
sophists  of  Greece  went  before  them  ;  whatever  audacity  can  dare 
and  subtilty  contrive  to  make  the  words  '  good'  and  '  evil'  change 
their  meaning,  has  been  already  tried  in  the  days  of  Plato,  and  by 
his  eloquence,  and  wisdom,  and  faith  unshaken,  has  been  put  to 
shame.  Thus  it  is  that,  while  the  advance  of  civilization  destroys 
much  that  is  noble,  and  throws  over  the  mass  of  human  society  an 
atmosphere  somewhat  dull  and  hard ;  yet  it  is  only  by  its  peculiar 
trials,  no  less  than  by  its  positive  advantages,  that  the  utmost  virtue 
of  human  nature  can  be  matured  ;  and  those  who  vainly  lament  that 
progress  of  earthly  things  which,  whether  good  or  evil,  is  certainly 

inevitable,  may  be  consoled  by  the  thought  that  its  sure  tendency  is 

0 


62  NOTES 

to  confirm  and  purify  the  virtue  of  the  good  :  and  that  to  us,  holding 
in  our  hands,  not  the  wisdom  of  Plato  only,  but  also  a  treasure  of 
wisdom  and  of  comfort  which  to  Plato  was  denied,  the  utmost 
activity  of  the  human  mind  may  be  viewed  without  apprehension, 
in  the  confidence  that  we  possess  a  charm  to  deprive  it  of  its  evil, 
and  to  make  it  minister  for  ourselves  certainly,  and  through  us,  if 
we  use  it  rightly,  for  the  world  in  general,  to  the  more  perfect  tri- 
umph of  good. 

"  I  linger  round  a  subject  which  nothing  could  tempt  me  to  quit 
but  the  consciousness  of  treating  it  too  unworthily.  What  is  mis- 
called ancient  history,  the  really  modern  history  of  the  civilization 
of  Greece  and  Rome,  has  for  years  interested  me  so  deeply,  that  it 
is  painful  to  feel  myself  after  all  so  unable  to  paint  it  fully.  Of  the 
manifold  imperfections  of  this  edition  of  Thucydides  none  can  be 
more  aware  than  I  am  ;  but  in  the  present  state  of  knowledge  these 
will  be  soon  corrected  and  supplied  by  others ;  and  I  will  at  least 
hope  that  these  volumes  may  encourage  a  spirit  of  research  into 
history,  and  may  in  some  measure  assist  in  directing  it ;  that  they 
may  contribute  to  the  conviction  that  history  is  to  be  studied  as  a 
whole,  and  according  to  its  philosophical  divisions,  not  such  as  are 
merely  geographical  and  chronological ;  that  the  history  of  Greece 
and  of  Rome  is  not  an  idle  inquiry  about  remote  ages  and  forgotten 
institutions,  but  a  living  picture  of  things  present,  fitted  not  so  much 
for  the  curiosity  of  the  scholar,  as  for  the  instruction  of  the  states- 
man and  the  citizen. 

"  January,  1835  " 

NOTE  13.— Page  49. 

*  *  *  "  Hannibal  was  arrived  in  Italy,  but  with  a  force  so  weakened 
by  its  losses  in  men  and  horses,  and  by  the  exhausted  state  of  the 
survivors,  that  he  might  seem  to  have  accomplished  his  great  march 
in  vain.  According  to  his  own  statement,  which  there  is  no  reason 
to  doubt,  he  brought  out  of  the  Alpine  valleys  no  more  than  twelve 
thousand  African  and  eight  thousand  Spanish  infantry,  with  six 
thousand  cavalry ;  so  that  his  march  from  the  Pyrenees  to  the 
plains  of  northern  Italy  must  have  cost  him  thirty-three  thousand 
men ;  an  enormous  loss,  which  proves  how  severely  the  armv  must 


TO    INAUGURAL    LECTURE.  63 

have  suffered  from  the  privations  of  the  march,  and  the  severity 
of  the  Alpine  climate  ;  for  not  half  of  these  thirty-three  thousand 
men  can  have  fallen  in  battle." 

History  of  Rome,  chap,  xliii.  vol.  iii.  p.  91. 

*  *  "  Such  is  the  story  of  the  earliest  recorded  passage  of  the 
Alps  by  civilized  men,  the  earliest  and  the  most  memorable.  Ac- 
customed as  we  are,  since  the  completion  of  the  great  Alpine  roads 
in  the  present  century,  to  regard  the  crossing  of  the  Alps  as  an 
easy  summer  excursion,  we  can  even  less  than  our  fathers  conceive 
the  difficulties  of  Hannibal's  march,  and  the  enormous  sacrifices  by 
which  it  was  accomplished.  He  himself  declared  that  he  had  lost 
above  thirty  thousand  men  since  he  had  crossed  the  Pyrenees,  and 
that  the  remnant  of  his  army,  when  he  reached  the  plains  of  Italy, 
amounted  to  no  more  than  twenty  thousand  foot  and  six  thousand 
horsemen :  nor  does  Polybius  seem  to  suspect  any  exaggeration  in 
the  statement.  Yet  eleven  years  afterwards  Hasdrubal  crossed 
the  Alps  in  his  brother's  track  without  sustaining  any  loss  de- 
serving of  notice,  and  *  a  few  accidents'  are  all  that  occurred  in 
the  most  memorable  passage  of  modern  times,  that  of  Napoleon 
over  the  great  St.  Bernard,  ('  On  n'eutque  peu  d'accidens.'  Napole- 
on's Memoirs,  i.  261.)  It  is  evident  that  Hannibal  could  have  found 
nothing  deserving  the  name  of  a  road,  no  bridges  over  the  rivers, 
torrents,  and  gorges,  nothing  but  mere  mountain  paths,  liable  to  be 
destroyed  by  the  first  avalanche  or  landslip,  and  which  the  barbarians 
neither  could  nor  cared  to  repair,  but  on  the  destruction  of  which 
they  looked  out  for  another  line,  such  as  for  their  purposes  of  com- 
munication it  was  not  difficult  to  find." 

History  of  Rome,  vol.  iii.  p.  480,  note. 

NOTE  14. — Page  50. 

In  connection  with  this  lecture  there  should  be  read  the  account 
of  Dr.  Arnold's  character  as  a  student  and  writer  of  history,  given 
in  Mr.  Stanley's  excellent  biography  of  him.  Appendix  No.  1  of 
this  volume  will  be  found  to  contain  a  selection  from  it. 

In  Appendix  No.  2,  I  have  selected  from  his  description  of 
'  Rugby  School'  some  of  his  opinions  upon  historical  instruction. 


APPENDIX. 


I  HAVE  alluded  in  my  Inaugural  Lecture  to  authorities 
deserving  of  all  respect  which  maintain  the  doctrine  of 
Warburton,  that  "  the  object  of  political  society  is  the  pre- 
servation of  body  and  goods.7'"  I  alluded  particularly  to  the 
Archbishop  of  Dublin,  and  to  the  author  of  a  Review  of 
Mr.  Gladstone's  book,  "  The  State  in  its  Relations  with  the 
Church,"  in  the  139th  number  of  the  Edinburgh  Review. 
It  is  due  to  such  opponents  not  to  pass  by  their  arguments 
unnoticed ;  it  is  due  to  them,  and  still  more  to  myself,  lest  1 
should  be  suspected  of  leaving  them  unanswered  because  ] 
could  not  answer  them. 

It  appears  to  me  that  the  Reviewer  is  led  to  maintain 
Warburton's  doctrine,  chiefly  in  consequence  of  certain 
practical  difficulties  which  seem  to  result  from  the  doctrine 
opposed  to  it.  He  does  not  wish  to  restrict  the  state  from 
regarding  religious  and  moral  ends ;  but  fearing  that  its 
regard  for  them  will  lead  to  practical  mischief,  he  will  only- 
allow  it  to  consider  them  in  the  second  place,  so  far,  that  is, 
as  they  do  not  interfere  with  its  primary  object,  the  pro- 
tection of  persons  and  property.  The  Warburtonian  theory 
appears  not  to  be  the  natural  conclusion  of  inquiries  into  the 
object  of  governments,  but  an  ingenious  device  to  enable  u? 
to  escape  from  some  difficulties  which  we  know  not  how  tc 
deal  with.  If  the  opposite  theory  can  be  freed  from  these 
difficulties,  it  may  be  believed  that  the  Reviewer  would 
gladly  sacrifice  the  theory  of  Warburton. 


APPENDIX  TO  INAUGURAL  LECTURE,        65 

1  regard  the  theory  of  government,  maintained  in  my 
Lecture,  to  be  a  theory  which  we  can  in  practice  only  par- 
tially realize.  This  I  quite  allow,  at  least  with  regard  either 
to  the  present,  or  to  any  future,  which  we  can  as  yet  ven- 
ture to  anticipate.  It  is  a  theory  which,  nowhere  perfectly 
realized,  is  realized  imperfectly  in  very  different  degrees  in 
different  times  and  countries.  It  must  not  be  forced  upon  a 
state  of  things  not  ripe  for  it,  and  therefore  its  most  zealous 
advocates  must  often  be  content  to  tolerate  violations  of  it 
more  or  less  flagrant.  All  this  is  true ;  but  yet  I  believe  it 
to  be  the  true  theory  of  government,  and  that  by  acknow- 
ledging it  to  be  so,  and  keeping  it  therefore  always  in  sight, 
we  may  be  able  at  last  to  approach  indefinitely  near  to  it. 

The  moral  character  of  government  seems  to  follow  ne- 
cessarily from  its  sovereign  power ;  this  is  the  simple  ground 
of  what  I  will  venture  to  call  the  moral  theory  of  its  objects. 
For  as  in  each  individual  man  there  is  a  higher  object  than 
the  preservation  of  his  body  and  goods,  so  if  he  be  subjected 
in  the  last  resort  to  a  power  incapable  of  appreciating  this 
higher  object,  his  social  or  political  relations,  instead  of  being 
the  perfection  of  his  being,  must  be  its  corruption;  the  voice 
of  law  can  only  agree  accidentally  with  that  of  his  con- 
science, and  yet  on  this  voice  of  law  his  life  and  death  are 
to  depend ;  for  its  sovereignty  over  him  must  be,  by  the  na- 
ture of  the  case,  absolute. 

The  Reviewer's  distinction  between  primary  and  second- 
ary  ends,  and  his  estimate  of  physical  ends  as  primary  and 
moral  as  secondary,  may  apply  perfectly  well  to  any  society, 
except  that  which  is  sovereign  over  all  human  life  ;  because 
so  long  as  this  sovereign  society  preserves  the  due  order  of 
objects,  postponing  the  physical  to  the  moral,  other  societies 
may  safely  in  their  subordinate  sphere  reverse  it,  the  check 
upon  them  being  always  at  hand  ;  the  confession  theoreti- 
cally, and  the  care  practically,  that  the  physical  end  shall 

6* 


66  APPENDIX    TO 

take  precedence  of  the  moral  only  at  certain  times  and  in 
certain  instances,  but  that  the  rule  of  life  is  the  other  way. 

And  again,  that  singleness  of  object  which  the  Reviewer 
considers  so  great  an  excellence,  "  every  contrivance  of  hu- 
man wisdom  being  likely  to  answer  its  end  best  when  it  is 
constructed  with  a  single  view  to  that  end,"  belongs  it  is 
true  to  subordinate  societies  or  contrivances,  but  ceases  to 
exist  as  we  ascend  from  the  subordinate  to  the  supreme. 
This  is  the  exact  difference  between  teaching  and  education  ; 
a  teacher,  whether  it  be  of  Latin  and  Greek,  or  of  French 
and  German,  or  of  geography  and  history,  or  of  drawing,  01 
of  gymnastics,  has  nothing  to  think  of  beyond  his  own  imme- 
diate subject ;  it  is  not  his  concern  if  his  pupil's  tastes  and 
abilities  are  more  adapted  to  other  studies,  if  that  particular 
knowledge  which  he  is  communicating  is  claiming  a  portion 
of  time  more  than  in  accordance  with  its  value.  He  has  one 
single  object,  to  teach  his  own  science  effectually.  But  he 
who  educates  must  take  a  higher  view,  and  pursue  an  end 
accordingly  far  more  complicated.  He  must  adjust  the  re- 
spective claims  of  bodily  and  mental  exercise,  of  different 
kinds  of  intellectual  labour ; — he  must  consider  every  part 
of  his  pupil's  nature,  physical,  intellectual,  and  moral ;  re- 
garding the  cultivation  of  the  last,  however,  as  paramount  to 
that  of  either  of  the  others.  (1)  Now,  according  to  the  Re- 
viewer's theory,  the  state  is  like  the  subordinate  teacher ; 
according  to  mine  it  is  like  the  educator,  and  for  this  very 
reason,  because  its  part  cannot  be  subordinate ;  if  you  make 
the  state  no  more  than  a  particular  teacher,  we  must  look  for 
the  educator  elsewhere ;  for  the  sovereign  authority  over  us 
must  be  like  the  educator,  it  must  regulate  our  particular 
lessons,  and  determine  that  we  shall  study  most  what  is  of 
most  value. 

But  I  believe  that  the  moral  theory  of  the  objects  of  a 
state,  expressed  as  I  have  here  expressed  it,  would  in  itself 


INAUGURAL    LECTURE.  67 

never  have  been  disputed.  It  is  considered  to  be  objection, 
able  and  leading  to  great  practical  mischief,  when  stated 
somewhat  differently ;  when  it  is  said,  that  the  great  object 
of  a  state  is  to  promote  and  propagate  religious  truth ;  a 
statement  which  yet  appears  to  be  identical,  or  nearly  so, 
with  the  moral  theory ;  so  that  if  it  be  false,  the  moral  theory 
is  thought  to  be  overturned  with  it.  But  it  has  always  ap- 
peared to  me  that  here  precisely  we  find  the  great  confusions 
of  the  whole  question ;  and  that  the  substitution  of  the  term 
"  religious  truth"  in  the  place  of  "  man's  highest  perfection" 
has  given  birth  to  the  great  difficulties  of  the  case.  For  by 
"  religious  truth"  we  immediately  understand  certain  dog- 
matical propositions  on  matters  more  or  less  connected  with 
religion ;  these  we  connect  with  a  certain  creed  and  a  cer- 
tain sect  or  church,  and  then  the  theory  comes  to  be,  that  the 
great  object  of  a  state  is  to  uphold  some  one  particular 
church,  conceived  to  be  the  true  one,  and  to  discountenance 
all  who  are  not  members  of  it ;  a  form  in  which  I  do  not 
wonder  that  the  moral  theory  should  be  regarded  as  most 
objectionable. 

All  societies  of  men,  whether  we  call  them  states  or 
churches,  should  make  their  bond  to  consist  in  a  common 
object  and  a  common  practice,  rather  than  in  a  common  be- 
lief; in  other  words,  their  end  should  be  good  rather  than 
truth.  We  may  consent  to  act  together,  but  we  cannot  con- 
sent to  believe  together ;  many  motives  may  persuade  us  to 
the  one ;  we  may  like  the  object,  or  we  may  like  our  com- 
pany,  or  we  may  think  it  safest  to  join  them,  or  most  conve- 
nient, and  any  one  of  these  motives  is  quite  sufficient  to  induce 
a  unity  of  action,  action  being  a  thing  in  our  own  power. 
But  no  motives  can  persuade  us  to  believe  together ;  we  may 
wish  a  statement  to  be  true,  we  may  admire  those  who  be- 
lieve it,  we  may  find  it  very  inconvenient  not  to  believe  it ; 
all  this  helps  us  nothing  ;  unless  our  own  mind  is  freely  con- 


68  APPENDIX    TO 

vine  ad  that  the  statement  or  doctrine  be  true,  we  cannot  by 
possibility  believe  it.  That  union  in  action  will  in  the  end 
lead  very  often  to  union  of  belief  is  most  true ;  but  we  cannot 
ensure  its  doing  so;  and  the  social  bond  cannot  directly  re- 
quire for  its  perfectness  more  than  union  or  action.  It  cannot 
properly  require  more  than  it  is  in  the  power  of  «nen  to  give  ; 
and  men  can  submit  their  actions  to  a  common  law  at  then 
own  choice,  but  their  internal  convictions  they  cannot. 

Such  a  union  of  action  appears  historically  to  have  been 
the  original  bond  of  the  Christian  church.  Whoever  was 
willing  to  receive  Christ  as  his  master,  to  join  His  people, 
and  to  walk  according  to  their  rules,  he  was  admitted  to  the 
Christian  society.  We  know  that  in  the  earliest  church 
there  existed  the  strangest  varieties  of  belief,  some  Christians 
not  even  believing  that  there  would  be  a  resurrection  of  the 
dead.  Of  course  it  was  not  intended  that  such  varieties 
should  be  perpetual ;  a  closer  union  of  belief  was  gradually 
effected  :  but  the  point  to  observe,  is  that  the  union  of  belief 
grew  out  of  the  union  of  action :  it  was  the  result  of  belong, 
ing  to  the  society  rather  than  a  previous  condition  required 
for  belonging  to  it.  And  it  is  true  farther,  that  all  union  of 
action  implies  in  one  sense  a  union  of  belief;  that  is,  they 
who  agree  to  do  a  certain  thing  must  believe  that  in  some 
way  or  other,  either  as  a  positive  good  or  as  the  lesser  evil,  it 
is  desirable  for  them  to  do  it.  But  belief  in  the  desirableness 
of  an  act  differs  greatly  from  belief  in  the  truth  of  a  propo- 
sition ;  even  fear  may  give  unity  of  action,  and  such  unity 
of  belief  as  is  implied  by  it :  a  soldier  is  threatened  with 
death  if  he  does  not  fight,  and  so  believing  that  to  fight  is 
now  desirable  for  him,  as  a  less  evil  than  certain  death,  he 
stands  his  ground  and  fights  accordingly.  But  fear,  though 
it  may  make  us  wish  with  all  our  hearts  that  we  could  be- 
lieve the  truth  of  a  proposition,  yet  cannot  enable  or  compel 
•is  to  believe  it. 


INAUGURAL    LECTURE  69 

Now  the  state  aiming  at  the  highest  perfection  of  its  mem- 
bers, can  require  them  to  conform  their  conduct  to  a  certain 
law ;  and  it  may  exclude  from  its  benefits  those  who  dispute 
this  law's  authority.  Nor  does  it  in  the  least  matter  whether 
the  law  so  enforced  be  of  the  state's  own  invention,  or  be 
borrowed  from  some  other  nation,  as  many  countries  have 
adopted  the  Roman  law  ;  or  be  received  not  from  any  human 
author  at  all,  but  from  God.  A  state  may  as  justly  declare 
the  New  Testament  to  be  its  law,  as  it  may  choose  the  insti- 
tutes and  code  of  Justinian.  In  this  manner  the  law  of 
Christ's  church  may  be  made  it's  law ;  and  all  the  institutions 
which  this  law  enjoins,  whether  in  ritual  or  discipline,  may 
be  adopted  as  national  institutions  just  as  legitimately  as  any 
institutions  of  mere  human  origin. 

The  question  then  which  is  sometimes  asked  so  indig- 
nantly,— Is  the  government  to  impose  its  religion  upon  the 
people  ?  may  be  answered  by  asking  again, — Is  the  govern- 
ment to  impose  its  own  laws  upon  the  people  ?  We  speak 
of  the  government  as  distinct  from  the  people,  without  there- 
by implying  that  it  is  in  opposition  to  the  people.  In  a  cor- 
rupt state  the  government  and  people  are  wholly  at  variance  ; 
in  a  perfect  state  they  would  be  wholly  one ;  in  ordinary 
states  they  are  one  more  or  less  imperfectly.  We  need  not 
be  afraid  to  say,  that  in  a  perfect  state  the  law  of  the  gov- 
ernment would  be  the  law  of  the  people,  the  law  of  their 
choice,  the  expression  of  their  mind.  In  less  perfect  states 
the  law  of  the  government  is  more  or  less  the  law  of  the 
people,  suiting  them  in  the  main  if  not  entirely.  If  it  be 
wholly  or  in  great  part  unwelcome  to  them,  something  in 
that  state  is  greatly  wrong;  and  although  I  believe  that 
there  are  cases  where  a  dictatorship  is  a  good,  and  where 
good  laws  may  rightfully  be  imposed  on  a  barbarian  and  un- 
willing people ;  yet,  as  the  rule,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
such  a  state  of  things  is  tyranny.  When  I  speak  therefore 


70  APPENDIX    TO 

of  the  government,  I  am  speaking  of  it  as  expressing  the 
mind  and  will  of  the  nation ;  and  though  a  government  may 
not  impose  its  own  law,  whether  human  or  divine,  upon  an 
adverse  people  ;  yet  a  nation,  acting  through  its  government, 
may  certainly  choose  for  itself  such  a  law  as  it  deems  most 
for  its  good. 

And  therefore  when  it  has  been  said  that  "  these  islands 
do  not  belong  to  the  king  and  parliament  in  the  same  man- 
ner as  the  house  or  land  of  any  individual  belongs  to  the 
owner,"  and  that  therefore  a  government  may  not  settle  the 
religious  law  of  a  country  as  the  master  of  a  family  may 
settle  the  religious  practices  of  his  household ;  this  is  true 
only  if  we  consider  the  king  and  parliament  as  not  speaking 
the  voice  of  the  nation,  but  their  own  opposed  to  that  of  the 
nation.  For  the  right  of  a  nation  over  its  own  territory 
must  be  at  least  as  absolute  as  that  of  any  individual  over 
his  own  house  and  land ;  and  it  surely  is  not  an  absurdity  to 
suppose  that  the  voice  of  government  can  ever  be  the  voice 
of  the  nation  :  although  they  unhappily  too  often  differ,  yet 
surely  they  may  conceivably,  and  very  often  do  in  practice, 
completely  agree. 

The  only  question  then  is,  how  far  the  nation  or  society 
may  impose  its  law  upon  a  number  of  dissentient  individuals  ; 
what  we  have  to  do  with,  are  the  rights  of  the  body  in  rela- 
tion to  those  of  the  several  members ;  a  grave  question  cer- 
tainly— I  know  of  none  more  difficult ;  but  which  exists  in 
all  its  force,  even  if  we  abandon  the  moral  theory  of  the 
state  altogether.  For  if  we  acknowledge  the  idea  of  a  church, 
ihe  difficulty  meets  us  no  less  ;  the  names  of  state  and  church 
make  no  difference  in  the  matter ;  we  have  still  a  body  im- 
posing its  laws  upon  individuals  ;  if  the  state  may  not  inter- 
fere with  an  individual's  religion,  how  can  the  church  do  it  ? 
for  the  difficulty  is  that  the  individual  cannot  and  must  not  be 
wholly  merged  in  the  society  ;  he  cannot  yield  all  his  con- 


INAUGURAL    LECTURE.  71 

victions  of  truth  and  right  to  the  convictions  of  other  men  ; 
he  may  sometimes  be  called  upon  to  dissent  from,  and  to  dis- 
obey, chief  priests  and  doctors,  bishops  and  presbyters,  no 
less  than  the  secular  authorities,  as  they  are  called,  of  em- 
perors and  kings,  proconsuls  and  parliaments.  Long  before 
Constantine  interfered  with  his  imperial  power  in  the  con- 
cerns of  the  church,  the  question  existed :  conscience  might 
be  lorded  over,  tastes  and  feelings  rudely  shocked,  belief 
claimed  for  that  which  to  the  mind  of  the  individual  appeared 
certain  error;  the  majority  might  tyrannize  over  the  mi- 
nority; the  society  might  interfere  with  the  most  sacred 
rights  of  the  individual. 

Nor  is  it  the  state  alone  which,  by  imposing  articles  of 
faith,  is  guilty  of  tempting  men  to  hypocrisy  ;  a  charge  which 
has  been  very  strongly  urged  against  the  system  of  making 
full  citizenship  depend  on  the  profession  of  Christianity  :  nor 
is  it  the  state  alone  which  does  more  than  merely  instruct 
and  persuade,  and  which  employs  "  secular  coercion"  in  the 
cause  of  the  Gospel ;  all  which  things  have  been  said  to  be 
"at  variance  with  the  true  spirit  of  the  Gospel,"  and  to 
"  imply  a  sinful  distrust,  want  of  faith  in  Christ's  wisdom,  and 
goodness,  and  power."  The  church  has  required  obedience 
and  punished  disobedience  ;  I  will  not  appeal  to  St.  Paul's 
expression  of  "  delivering  a  man  to  Satan  for  the  destruction 
of  the  flesh,  that  his  spirit  might  be  saved  in  the  day  of  the 
Lord,"  because  what  is  there  meant  is  uncertain,  and  the 
power  claimed  may  be  extraordinary ;  but  I  maintain  that 
the  sentence  of  excommunication,  which  has  been  held  al- 
ways to  belong  to  the  church,  is  to  all  intents  and  purposes  a 
secular  coercion ;  it  goes  much  beyond  instruction  and  per- 
suasion, it  is  a  punishment  as  completely  as  ever  was  the 
ancient  dr^la,  or  deprivation  of  political  rights  :  (2)  it  inflicts 
and  is  meant  to  inflict  great  inconvenience  and  great  suffering, 
acting  most  keenly  upon  the  noblest  minds,  but  yet  touching 


72  APPENDIX    TO 

the  meanest  as  effectually,  to  say  the  least,  as  the  ancient 
civil  penalty  of  banishment. 

Now  accidentally  excommunication  may  be  a  small  pen- 
alty, but  in  its  own  nature  it  is  most  grievous.  It  cuts  a 
man  off  from  the  kindness  and  society  of  his  nearest  and 
dearest  friends ;  it  divides  him  from  those  with  whom  alone 
he  can  in  the  nature  of  things  feel  strong  sympathy ;  for 
where  can  a  Christian  find  such  but  among  Christ's  people, 
and  from  these  excommunication  cuts  him  off.  And  con- 
ceive the  case  of  a  country,  geographically  remote  from  other 
countries,  and  inhabited  only  by  Christians ;  what  resource 
would,  under  such  circumstances,  be  left  to  an  excommuni- 
cated person  ?  and  would  not  the  temptation  be  extreme  to 
him  to  profess  his  belief  in  whatever  the  church  taught,  to 
yield  obedience  to  whatever  it  required,  in  order  to  be  saved 
from  a  life  of  loneliness  and  of  infamy  ?  Yet  the  power  of 
excommunicating  for  heretical  opinions  is  one  which  the 
church  is  supposed  to  hold  lawfully,  while  the  power  of  dis- 
franchising for  such  opinions  is  called  persecution,  and  a 
making  Christ's  kingdom  a  kingdom  of  the  world. 

It  is  of  some  consequence  to  disentangle  this  confusion,  be- 
cause what  I  have  called  the  moral  theory  of  a  state,  is  really 
open  to  no  objections  but  such  as  apply  with  equal  force  to 
the  theory  of  a  church,  and  especially  to  the  theory  of  a 
national,  and  still  more  of  a  universal  church.  Wherever 
there  is  centralization,  there  is  danger  of  the  parts  of  the 
body  being  too  much  crippled  in  their  individual  action ;  and 
yet  centralization  is  essential  to  their  healthy  activity  no  less 
than  to  the  perfection  of  the  body.  But  if  men  run  away 
with  the  mistaken  notion  that  liberty  of  conscience  is  threat- 
ened  only  by  a  state  religion,  and  not  at  all  by  a  church  re- 
ligion, the  danger  is  that  they  will  abandon  religion  alto- 
gether  to  what  they  call  the  church,  that  is,  to  the  power  of 
a  society  far  worse  governed  than  most  states,  and  likely  to 


INAUGURAL    LECTURE.  73 

lay  far  heavier  burdens  on  individual  conscience,  because 
the  spirit  dominant  in  it  is  narrower  and  more  intolerant. 

No  doubt  all  societies,  whether  they  are  called  states  or 
churches,  are  bound  to  avoid  tempting  the  consciences  of  in- 
dividuals  by  overstraining  the  terms  of  citizenship  or  commu- 
nion. And  it  is  desirable,  as  I  said  before,  to  require  a  pro- 
fession  of  obedience  rather  than  of  belief,  because  obedience 
can  and  will  often  be  readily  rendered  where  belief  would 
be  withheld.  But  as  states  require  declarations  of  allegiance 
to  the  sovereign,  so  they  may  require  declarations  of  sub- 
mission to  the  authority  of  a  particular  law.  If  a  man 
believes  himself  bound  to  refuse  obedience  to  the  law  of 
Christianity,  or  will  not  pledge  himself  to  regard  it  as  para- 
mount in  authority  to  any  human  legislation,  he  cannot  prop- 
erly be  a  member  of  a  society  which  conceives  itself  bound 
to  regulate  all  its  proceedings  by  this  law,  and  cannot  allow 
any  of  its  provisions  to  be  regarded  as  revocable  or  alterable. 
But  no  human  power  can  presume  to  inquire  into  the  degree 
of  a  man's  positive  belief:  the  heretic  was  not  properly  he 
who  did  not  believe  what  the  church  taught,  but  he  who  wil- 
fully withdrew  himself  from  its  society,  refusing  to  conform 
to  its  system,  and  setting  up  another  system  of  his  own. 

I  know  that  it  will  be  objected  to  this,  that  it  is  no  other 
than  the  system  of  the  old  philosophers,  who  upheld  pagan- 
ism as  expedient,  while  they  laughed  at  it  in  their  hearts  as 
false.  But  he  who  makes  such  an  objection  must  surely  forget 
the  essential  difference  between  paganism  and  Christianity. 
Paganism,  in  the  days  of  the  philosophers,  scarcely  pretended 
to  rest  on  a  foundation  of  historical  truth ;  no  thinking  man 
believed  in  it,  except  as  allegorically  true.  But  Christianity 
commends  itself  to  the  minds  of  a  vast  majority  of  thinking 
men,  as  being  true  in  fact  no  less  than  in  doctrine ;  they  be- 
lieve in  it  as  literally  true  no  less  than  spiritually.  \Vhen  I 
speak  then  of  a  state  requiring  obedience  to  the  Christian 

7 


74  APPENDIX    TO 

law,  it  means  that  the  state,  being  the  perfect  church,  should 
do  the  church's  work  ;  that  is,  that  it  should  provide  for  the 
Christian  education  of  the  young,  and  the  Christian  instruc- 
tion of  the  old ;  that  it  should,  by  public  worship  and  by  a 
Christian  discipline,  endeavour,  as  much  as  may  be,  to  realize 
Christianity  to  all  its  people.  Under  such  a  system,  the 
teachers  would  speak  because  they  believed,  for  Christian 
teachers  as  a  general  rule  do  so,  and  their  hearers  would,  in 
like  manner,  learn  to  believe  also.  Farther,  the  evidence  of 
the  Christian  religion,  in  itself  so  unanswerable,  would  be 
confirmed  by  the  manifest  witness  of  the  Christian  church, 
when  possessing  a  real  living  constitution,  and  purified  by  an 
efficient  discipline  ;  so  that  the  temptations  to  unbelief  would 
be  continually  lessened,  and  unbelief,  in  all  human  proba- 
bility, would  become  continually  of  more  rare  occurrence. 
And  possibly  the  time  might  come  when  a  rejection  of  Chris- 
tianity would  be  so  clearly  a  moral  offence,  that  profane 
writings  would  be  as  great  a  shock  to  all  men's  notions  of 
right  and  wrong  as  obscene  writings  are  now,  and  the  one 
might  be  punished  with  no  greater  injury  to  liberty  of  con- 
science than  the  other. 

But  this  general  hearty  belief  in  Christianity  is  to  be  re- 
garded by  the  Christian  society,  whether  it  be  called  church 
or  state,  not  as  its  starting  point,  but  as  its  highest  perfection. 
To  begin  with  a  strict  creed  and  no  efficient  Christian  insti- 
tutions, is  the  sure  way  to  hypocrisy  and  unbelief;  to  begin 
with  the  most  general  confession  of  faith,  imposed,  that  is,  as 
a  test  of  membership,  but  with  vigorous  Christian  institutions, 
is  the  way  most  likely  to  lead,  not  only  to  a  real  and  general 
belief,  but  also  to  a  lively  perception  of  the  highest  points  of 
Christian  faith.  In  other  words,  intellectual  objections  to 
Christianity  should  be  tolerated,  where  they  are  combined 
with  moral  obedience ;  tolerated,  because  in  this  way  they 
are  most  surely  removed  j  whereas  a  corrupt  or  disorganized 


INAUGURAL    LECTURE.  76 

church  with  a  minute  creed,  encourages  intellectual  objec- 
tions ;  and  if  it  proceeds  to  put  them  down  by  force,  it  does 
often  violate  the  right  of  conscience,  punishing  an  unbelief 
which  its  own  evil  has  provoked,  and,  so  far  as  human  judg- 
ment can  see,  has  in  a  great  measure  justified. 

I  have  endeavored  to  show  that  the  favorite  objections 
against  the  state's  concerning  itself  with  religion,  apply  no 
less  to  the  theory  of  a  church,  the  difficulty  being  to  prevent 
the  society  from  controlling  the  individual  mind  too  com- 
pletely, and  from  encouraging  unbelief  and  hypocrisy  by  re- 
quiring prematurely  a  declaration  of  belief  from  its  members, 
rather  than  a  promise  of  obedience.  It  is  hardly  necessary 
to  observe,  that  the  moral  theory  of  a  state  is  not  open  to  the 
objection  commonly  brought  against  our  actual  constitution, 
namely,  that  parliament  is  not  a  fit  body  to  legislate  on  mat- 
ters of  religion ;  for  the  council  of  a  really  Christian  state 
would  consist  of  Christians  at  once  good  and  sensible,  quite 
as  much  as  the  council  of  a  really  Christian  church  ;  and  if 
we  take  a  nominally  Christian  state,  or  a  nominally  Christian 
church,  their  councils  will  be  equally  unfit  to  legislate  ;  to 
say  nothing  of  the  obvious  answer,  that  the  details  of  all 
great  legislative  measures,  whether  ecclesiastical,  or  legal,  or 
military,  may  be  safely  left  to  professional  knowledge  and 
experience,  so  long  as  there  remains  a  higher  power,  not  pro- 
fessional, to  give  to  them  the  sanction  of  law. 

Finally,  the  moral  theory  of  a  state,  which  I  believe  to  be 
the  foundation  of  political  truth,  agrees  and  matches,  so  to 
speak,  with  the  only  true  theory  of  a  church.  If  the  state 
under  any  form,  and  in  its  highest  state  of  perfection,  can 
only  primarily  take  cognizance  of  physical  ends ;  then  its 
rulers  can  certainly  never  be  the  rulers  of  the  church,  and 
the  church  must  be  governed  by  rulers  of  its  own.  Now  the 
notion  of  a  priesthood,  or  of  a  divinely  appointed  succession 
of  church  governors,  does  not  indeed  necessarily  follow  from 


76  APPENDIX    TO 

this ;  but  at  any  rate  it  agrees  marvellously  with  it :  while, 
on  the  other  hand,  if  there  be  in  the  church  no  priesthood,  and 
no  divinely  ordered  succession  of  governors,  then  it  is  ready 
to  become  identified  with  the  Christian  state,  and  to  adopt  its 
forms  of  government ;  and  if  the  Christian  state  be  a  contra- 
diction in  terms,  because  the  state  must  always  prefer  physi- 
cal objects  to  moral,  then  the  church  has  no  resource  but  to 
imitate  its  forms  as  well  as  it  can,  although  in  a  subordinate 
society  they  must  lose  their  own  proper  efficacy. 

Now  believing  with  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  that  there 
is  in  the  Christian  church  neither  priesthood  nor  divine  suc- 
cession of  governors,  and  believing  with  Mr.  Gladstone  that 
the  state's  highest  objects  are  moral  and  not  physical,  I  can- 
not but  wonder  that  these  two  truths  are  in  each  of  their  sys- 
tems divorced  from  their  proper  mates.  The  church  freed 
from  the  notions  of  priesthood  and  apostolical  succession,  is 
divested  of  all  unchristian  and  tyrannical  power ;  but  craves 
by  reason  of  its  subordinate  condition  the  power  of  sovereign 
government,  that  power  which  the  forms  of  a  free  state  can 
alone  supply  healthfully.  And  the  state  having  sovereign 
power,  and  also,  as  Mr.  Gladstone  allows,  having  a  moral 
end  paramount  to  all  others,  is  at  once  fit  to  do  the  work  of 
the  church  perfectly,  so  soon  as  it  becomes  Christian ;  nor 
can  it  abandon  its  responsibility,  and  surrender  its  conscience 
up  into  the  hands  of  a  priesthood,  who  have  no  knowledge 
superior  to  its  own,  and  who  cannot  exercise  its  sovereignty. 
The  Christian  king,  or  council,  or  assembly,  excludes  the 
interference  of  the  priesthood  ;  the  church  without  a  priest- 
hood, craves  its  Christian  assembly,  or  council,  or  king. 

Believing  that  the  church  has  no  divinely  appointed  suc- 
cession of  governors  or  form  of  government,  and  that  its 
actual  governments,  considering  it  as  distinct  from  the  state, 
have  been  greatly  inferior  to  the  governments  of  well-ordered 
kingdoms  and  commonwealths ;  believing  that  the  end  and 


INAUGURAL    LECTURE.  77 

object  of  a  Christian  kingdom  or  commonwealth  is  precisely 
the  same  with  that  of  a  Christian  church,  and  that  the  sepa- 
ration of  the  two  has  led  to  the  grievous  corruption  of  both, 
making  the  state  worldly  and  profane,  and  the  church  formal, 
superstitious,  and  idolatrous  ;  believing  farther,  that  the  state 
cannot  be  perfect  till  it  possess  the  wisdom  of  the  church,  nor 
the  church  be  perfect  till  it  possess  the  power  of  the  state ;  that 
the  one  has  as  it  were  the  soul,  and  the  other  the  organized 
body,  each  of  which  requires  to  be  united  with  the  other ;  I 
would  unite  one  half  of  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin's  theory 
with  one  half  of  Mr.  Gladstone's ;  agreeing  cordially  with 
Mr.  Gladstone  in  the  moral  theory  of  the  state,  and  agreeing 
as  cordially  with  the  archbishop  in  what  I  will  venture  to 
call  the  Christian  theory  of  the  church,  and  deducing  from 
the  two  the  conclusion  that  the  perfect  state  and  the  perfect 
church  are  identical. 

In  what  has  been  said  above,  I  have  rather  attempted  to 
answer  objections  and  to  remove  miseonceptions  with  regard 
to  the  moral  theory  of  a  state,  than  to  offer  any  positive  proof 
of  that  theory.  It  seems  to  me  to  be  one  of  those  truths 
which  in  itself  command  general  assent,  and  that  the  opposi- 
tion to  it  is  mostly  an  after-thought,  originating  solely  in  a 
sense  of  the  difficulties  which  it  is  supposed  practically  to  in- 
volve. And  therefore  to  remove  those  difficulties,  leaves  the 
theory  with  its  own  internal  persuasiveness  unimpaired,  and 
likely  as  such  to  be  generally  received.  Something,  how- 
ever, in  support  of  the  theory  itself  has  been  offered  in  the 
Inaugural  Lecture ;  and  it  may  farther  be  proper  to  notice 
here  a  little  more  in  detail  two  elaborate  attacks  upon  it, 
which  have  been  made  in  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin's  "  Ad- 
ditional remarks  on  the  Jews'  Relief  Bill,"  published  in  the 
volume  entitled,  "  Charges  and  other  Tracts,"  printed  in  1836  : 
and  in  his  work  on  the  "  Kingdom  of  Christ,"  printed  in  1841. 

In  these  works  it  is  asserted  and  implied  continually,  that 

7* 


78  APPENDIX    TO 

religion  is  not  within  the  province  of  the  civil  magistrate ; 
and  that  secular  or  legal  coercion  may  not  be  employed  in 
the  cause  of  the  Gospel.  Now  the  first  of  these  statements 
is  surely  not  a  thing  to  be  taken  for  granted ;  and  whether  it 
be  right  or  wrong,  it  is  certain  that  such  a  doctrine  is  con- 
demned  by  the  almost  unanimous  consent  of  all  writers  on 
government,  whether  heathen  or  Christian,  down  to  the 
eighteenth  century ;  and  in  later  times,  to  name  no  others, 
by  Burke*  and  Coleridge.  Grotius,  no  mean  authority  surely 
on  points  of  law  and  government,  has  an  express  work,  "  De 
imperio  summarum  Potestatum  circa  sacra;"  in  which  he 
uses  nearly  the  same  argument  that  I  have  adopted  in  my 
Inaugural  Lecture  :  namely,  that  the  sovereignty  of  the  state 
makes  it  necessarily  embrace  all  points  of  human  life  and 
conduct.  And  he  says,  "  Si  quis  dixerit  actiones  esse  diver 
sas,  alias  puta  judiciales,  alias  militares,  alias  ecclesiasticas, 
ac  proinde  hujus  diversitatis  respectu  posse  ipsum  summum 
imperium  in  plures  dividi,  sequitur  ex  ejus  sententia,  ut 
eodem  tempore  idem  homo  ab  hoc  ire  jussus  ad  forum,  ab 
illo  ad  castra,  ab  illo  rursus  in  templum,  his  omnibus  parere 
teneatur,  quod  est  impossible."  Grotius,  Opera  Theol.  torn, 
iv.  (iii.)  p.  204,  ed.  Londin.  1679.  Nay,  it  is  allowed  by 
those  who  object  to  the  moral  theory  of  a  state,  that  Christian 
legislators  did  well  in  forcibly  suppressing  gladiatorial  shows 
and  impure  rites,  "  as  being  immoral  and  pernicious  ao- 


*  "  An  alliance  between  church  and  state  in  a  Christian  commonwealth,  is, 
in  my  opinion,  an  idle  and  a  fanciful  speculation.  An  alliance  is  between  two 
things  that  are  in  their  nature  distinct  and  independent,  such  as  between  two 
sovereign  states.  But  in  a  Christian  commonwealth,  the  church  and  the  state 
are  one  and  the  same  thing,  being  different  integral  parts  of  the  same  w  hole 
*  *  *  *  Religion  is  so  far,  in  my  opinion,  from  being  out  of  the  province  or  duty  of 
a  Christian  magistrate,  that  it  is,  and  it  ought  to  be,  not  only  his  care,  but  the 
principal  thing  in  his  care  ;  because  it  is  one  of  the  great  bonds  of  human  soci- 
ety, and  its  object  the  supreme  good,  the  ultimate  end  and  object  of  man  him- 
•elf."  Speech  on  the  Unitarian  Petition,  1792.  Burke's  Works,  vol.  x.  p.  43 
ed.  1818. 


INAUGURAL    LECTURE.  79 

tions ;"  but  if  the  legislator  has  any  thing  to  do  with  morality, 
the  whole  question  is  conceded ;  for  morality  is  surely  not 
another  name  for  expediency,  or  what  is  advantageous  for 
oody  and  goods ;  yet  if  it  be  not,  and  a  legislator  may  pro- 
hibit any  practice  because  it  is  wicked,  then  he  regards 
moral  ends,  and  his  care  is  directed  towards  man's  highest 
happiness,  and  to  the  putting  down  his  greatest  misery,  moral 
evil.  Nor  in  fact  does  it  appear  how,  on  other  than  purely 
moral  considerations,  a  state  is  justified  in  making  certain 
abominations  penal ;  such  acts  involving  in  them  no  violence 
or  fraud  upon  persons  or  property,  which,  according  to  War- 
burton,  are  the  only  objects  of  a  state's  care. 

The  words  "  secular"  and  "  temporal"  appear  to  me  to  be 
used  by  the  adversaries  of  the  moral  theory  of  a  state  with 
some  confusion.  (3)  Every  thing  done  on  earth  is  secular 
and  temporal ;  and  in  this  sense  no  society,  whether  it  be 
called  church  or  state,  can  have  for  its  direct  objects  any  other 
than  such  as  are  secular  and  temporal.  The  object  of  the 
church  is  not  to  raise  men  to  heaven,  but  to  make  them  fit  for 
heaven ;  but  this  is  a  work  done  in  time  and  in  the  world, 
and  completed  there ;  nor  does  it  differ  from  what  it  would  be 
if  there  were  no  future  life  at  all ;  our  duties  to  God  and  man 
would  be  just  the  same  whether  we  were  to  exist  for  seventy 
years  or  for  forever,  although  our  hope  and  encouragement 
would  be  infinitely  different.  The  words  "  temporal"  and 
"  secular"  have  therefore  no  place  in  this  question,  unless  we 
believe  that  the  God  of  this  world  is  really  and  truly  not  the  God 
of  the  next;  and  that  "temporal"  things  therefore  are  subject 
to  a  different  government  from  things  eternal.  And  so  with 
the  term  "  secular  coercion :"  it  is  manifest  that  no  coercion 
can  be  applied  to  any  man  in  this  life  without  affecting  his 
present  well-being  or  enjoyment :  excommunication  is  a 
"  secular  coercion"  as  much  as  imprisonment ;  it  inflicts  a 
present  harm,  it  makes  a  man's  life  less  happy  than  it  would 


80  APPENDIX   TO 

be  otherwise.  It  is,  in  fact,  one  of  the  severest  of  earthly 
punishments ;  for  it  is  very  well  to  talk  of  it  as  the  natural 
act  of  a  society  against  those  who  will  not  comply  with  its 
rules,  and  that  it  involves  no  injury,  because  a  man  has  only 
to  leave  a  society  if  he  does  not  like  it.  But  that  society 
may  be  one  to  which  it  is  the  pride  and  pleasure  of  his  life 
to  belong;  and  if  the  majority  form  rules  which  he  finds  very 
irksome,  and  then  expel  him  for  not  complying  with  them, 
he  sustains,  I  will  not  say  an  injury,  but  a  hurt  and  loss  j 
he  is  put  out  of  a  society  which  he  earnestly  wished  to  belong 
to,  and  which  comprehends,  it  may  be,  every  respectable 
person  in  his  neighbourhood.  He  has  a  strong  temptation  to 
comply  even  against  his  conscience,  rather  than  incur  such 
a  penalty  ;  and  when  the  society  is  the  church  of  God,  to  live 
out  of  which  would  be  to  many  minds  intolerable,  is  it  true 
that  exclusion  from  that  society  is  no  temporal  punishment 
or  coercion  ? 

But  the  argument  against  which  I  am  contending  relies 
mainly  on  our  Lord's  declaration  to  Pilate  that  "  His  king- 
dom was  not  of  this  world  ;"  from  which  it  is  concluded 
that  Christians  can  never  be  justified  in  making  the  profes- 
sion of  obedience  to  Christ  a  condition  of  citizenship,  for  that 
is  to  make  Christ's  kingdom  a  kingdom  of  the  world.  I  have 
been  in  the  habit  of  understanding  our  Lord  to  mean  that 
His  spiritual  dominion  did  not  of  itself  confer  any  earthly 
authority  ;  that,  therefore,  His  servants  did  not  fight  for  him 
against  the  Roman  soldiers,  as  the  servants  of  an  earthly 
king  would  be  bound  to  defend  their  master  against  the  ser- 
vants of  a  foreign  power.  And  so  neither  does  the  spiritual 
superiority  of  Christians  either  exempt  them  from  obedience 
to  the  law  of  ordinary  government,  or  authorize  them  to  im- 
pose their  own  law  on  other  men  by  virtue  of  that  superior- 
ity. In  other  words,  their  religion  gives  them  no  political 
rights  whatever  which  they  would  not  have  had  without  it. 


INAUGURAL    LECTURE.  8> 

But  this  meaning  is  not  considered  sufficient.  Our  Lord 
meant  to  disclaim  political  power  for  His  people,  not  only  in 
their  actual  circumstances,  but  in  all  other  conceivable  cir- 
cumstances :  not  only  as  claimed  by  virtue  of  their  religious 
superiority,  but  as  claimed  according  to  the  simplest  and 
most  acknowledged  principles  of  political  right.  If  in  days 
to  come,  emperor,  senate,  and  people,  shall  have  become 
Christians  by  the  mere  force  of  the  truth  and  holiness  of 
Christianity,  yet  they  must  not  think  that  they  may  exercise 
their  executive  and  legislative  powers  to  the  hurt  of  any  law 
or  institution  now  existing  in  the  Roman  heathen  world. 
Never  may  they  dare  to  interfere  with  the  Roman's  peculiar 
pride,  the  absolute  dominion  of  the  father  over  his  sons ;  nor 
with  the  state  of  slavery ;  nor  with  the  solemn  gladiatorial 
sacrifice,  so  grateful  to  the  shades  of  the  departed ;  nor  with 
those  festive  rites  of  Flora,  in  which  the  people  expressed  their 
homage  to  the  vivifying  and  prolific  powers  of  nature.  To  stop 
one  of  these  will  be  to  make  Christ's  kingdom  a  kingdom  of 
the  world,  which  Christ  has  forbidden.  True  it  is  that  to  us 
these  institutions  appear  immoral  or  unjust,  because  Chris- 
tianity has  taught  us  so  to  regard  them ;  but  to  a  Roman  they 
were  privileges,  or  powers,  or  pleasures,  which  he  could  ill 
bear  to  abandon.  And  most  strange  is  the  statement  that 
"  every  tribe  having  been  accustomed  to  establish,  wherever 
they  were  able,  a  monopoly  of  political  rights  for  themselves, 
keeping  all  other  inhabitants  of  the  same  territory  in  a  state 
of  tributary  subjection,  this  was  probably  the  very  thing  ap- 
prehended by  those  who  persecuted  the  early  Christians  as 
disaffected  persons."  In  the  first  place,  "  the  notion  of  one 
tribe  establishing  a  monopoly  of  political  rights,"  belonged 
to  a  state  of  things  which  had  long  since  perished,  and  was 
the  last  thing  which  any  man  would  apprehend  in  the  Roman 
world  in  the  days  of  Tiberius,  when  all  distinctions  of  condi- 
tion between  the  various  races  subject  to  the  empire  had 


82  APPENDIX    TO 

either  been  done  away  long  since  by  Alexander's  conquests, 
or  were  daily  being  destroyed  by  the  gift  of  the  Roman  fran- 
chise more  and  more  widely.  What  the  Romans  dreaded 
was  simply  a  revolt  of  Judaea  ;  they  heard  that  there  was  a 
king  of  the  Jews,  and  they  naturally  thought  that  he  would 
attempt  to  recover  the  ancient  kingdom  of  his  nation  ;  and  to 
this  it  was  a  clear  and  satisfactory  answer,  that  the  kingdom 
spoken  of  was  not  an  earthly  kingdom,  that  no  one  claimed 
as  David's  heir  to  expel  Caesar  as  a  foreign  usurper.  That 
the  heathen  Romans  persecuted  the  Christians  from  a  fear 
of  losing  their  civil  rights  should  Christians  become  the  pre- 
dominant party  in  the  empire,  is  not  only  a  statement  with- 
out evidence,  but  against  it.  We  know  from  the  Christian 
apologists  what  were  the  grounds  of  the  persecution ;  we 
know  it  farther  from  the  well-known  letters  of  Pliny  and 
Trajan.  The  Christians  were  punished  for  their  resolute 
non-conformity  to  the  laws  and  customs  of  Rome,  and  as 
men  who,  by  their  principles  and  lives,  seemed  to  condemn 
the  common  principles  and  practice  of  mankind.  They  were 
punished  not  as  men  who  might  change  the  laws  of  Rome 
hereafter,  but  as  men  who  disobeyed  them  now. 

I  am  content  with  that  interpretation  of  our  Lord's  words 
which  I  believe  has  been  generally  given  to  them ;  that  He 
did  not  mean  to  call  Himself  king  of  the  Jews  in  the  common 
sense  of  the  term,  so  as  to  imply  any  opposition  to  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  Romans.  And  as  a  general  deduction  from 
His  words,  I  accept  a  very  important  truth  which  fanaticism 
has  often  neglected — that  moral  and  spiritual  superiority  does 
not  interfere  with  the  ordinary  laws,  of  political  right ;  that 
the  children  of  God  are  not  by  virtue  of  that  relation  to 
claim  any  dominion  upon  earth.  Being  perfectly  convinced 
that  our  Lord  has  not  forbidden  His  people  to  establish  His 
kingdom,  when  they  can  do  so  without  the  breach  of  any 
rule  of  common  justice,  I  should  hail  as  the  perfect  consum 


INAUGURAL   LECTURE.  83 

mation  of  earthly  things,  the  fulfilment  of  the  word,  that  the 
kingdoms  of  the  world  should  become  the  kingdoms  of  God 
and  of  Christ.  And  that  kingdoms  of  the  world  not  only 
may,  but  are  bound  to  provide  for  the  highest  welfare  of 
their  people  according  to  their  knowledge,  is  a  truth  in  which 
philosophers  and  statesmen,  all  theory  and  all  practice,  have 
agreed  with  wonderful  unanimity  down  to  the  time  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  In  the  eighteenth  century,  however, 
and  since,  the  old  truth  has  not  wanted  illustrious  advocates. 
I  have  already  named  Burke  and  Coleridge  in  our  own 
country,  nor  am  I  aware  that  the  opposite  notion  has  ever 
received  any  countenance  from  any  one  of  the  great  men  of 
Germany.  Up  to  this  moment  the  weight  of  authority  is  be- 
yond all  comparison  against  it ;  and  it  is  for  its  advocates  to 
establish  it,  if  they  can,  by  some  clear  proofs.  At  present 
there  is  no  valid  objection  raised  against  the  moral  theory  of 
a  state's  objects ;  difficulties  only  are  suggested  as  to  points 
of  practical  detail,  some  of  them  arising  from  the  mixture  of 
extraneous  and  indefensible  doctrines  with  the  simple  theory 
itself,  and  others  applicable  indeed  to  that  theory,  but  no  less 
applicable  to  any  theory  which  can  be  given  of  a  Christian 
church,  and  to  be  avoided  only  by  a  system  of  complete  in. 
dividual  independence,  in  matters  relating  to  morals  and  to 
religion.  (4^ 


NOTES 


TO 


APPENDIX  TO  INAUGURAL  LECTURE. 


NOTE  1. — Page  66. 

*  *  "  A  mere  apprenticeship  is  not  good  education. 

"  Whatever  system  of  tuition  is  solely  adapted  to  enable  the 
pupil  to  play  a  certain  part  in  the  world's  drama,  whether  for  hia 
own  earthly  advantage,  or  for  that  of  any  other  man,  or  community 
of  men,  is  a  mere  apprenticeship.  It  matters  not  whether  the  part 
be  high  or  low,  the  hero  or  the  fool. 

"  A  good  education,  on  the  other  hand,  looks  primarily  to  the 
rig-lit  formation  of  the  Man  in  man,  and  its  final  cause  is  the  well- 
being  of  the  pupil,  as  he  is  a  moral,  responsible,  and  immortal 
being. 

"  But,  because  to  every  man  there  is  appointed  a  certain  ministry 
and  service,  a  path  prescribed  of  duty,  a  work  to  perform,  and  a 
race  to  run,  an  office  in  the  economy  of  Providence,  a  good  educa- 
tion always  provides  a  good  apprenticeship ;  for  usefulness  is  a 
necessary  property  of  goodness. 

"  The  moral  culture  of  man,  and  so  much  of  intellectual  culture 
as  is  conducive  thereto,  is  essential  to  education.  Whatever  of  in- 
tellectual culture  is  beyond  this,  should  be  regarded  as  pertaining 
to  apprenticeship,  and  should  be  apportioned  to  the  demands  of  the 
vocation  for  which  that  apprenticeship  is  designed  to  qualify. 

"  A  man  whose  education  is  without  apprenticeship,  will  be  use- 
less ;  a  man  whose  education  is  all  apprenticeship,  will  be  bad,  and 
therefore  pernicious,  and  the  more  pernicious  in  proportion  as  his 
function  is  high,  noble,  or  influential." 

HARTLEY  COLERIDGE'S  '  Lives  of  Distinguished  Northerns? 

p.  529,  note. 


NOTES    TO    APPENDIX,    ETC.  S? 

NOTE  2. — Page  71. 

"  A™///a  was  either  total  or  partial.  A  man  was  totally  de- 
prived of  his  rights,  both  for  himself  and  for  his  descendants,  wher 
he  was  convicted  of  murder,  theft,  false  witness,  partiality  as  ar- 
biter, violence  offered  to  a  magistrate,  and  so  forth.  This  highest 
degree  of  aripla.  excluded  the  person  affected  by  it  from  the  forum, 
and  from  all  public  assemblies  ;  from  the  public  sacrifices,  and  froir 
the  law  courts  ;  or  rendered  him  liable  to  immediate  imprisonment, 
if  he  was  found  in  any  of  these  places.  It  was  either  temporary 
or  perpetual ;  and  either  accompanied  or  not  with  confiscation  of 
property.  Partial  ann'ia  only  involved  the  forfeiture  of  some  few 
rights,  as  for  instance,  the  right  of  pleading  in  court.  Public  debt- 
ors were  suspended  from  their  civic  functions  till  they  discharged 
their  debt  to  the  state.  People  who  had  once  become  altogethei 
&TIHOI  were  very  seldom  restored  to  their  lost  privileges.  The 
converse  term  to  dn///o  was  lirmpia." 

*  Diet,  of  Greek  and  Roman  Antiquities.' 

Edited  by  Dr.  W.  Smith.    London,  1842. 

NOTE  3.— Page  79. 

In  the  contemplation  of  carrying  on  his  history  of  Rome,  to  what 
he  regarded  as  "  its  natural  termination  at  the  revival  of  the  West- 
ern empire,  in  the  year  800  of  the  Christian  sera,  by  the  coronation 
of  Charlemagne  at  Rome,"  Dr.  Arnold  writes — "  We  shall  then 
have  passed  through  the  chaos  which  followed  the  destruction  of 
the  old  Western  empire,  and  shall  have  seen  its  several  elements, 
combined  with  others  which  in  that  great  convulsion  had  been 
mixed  with  them,  organized  again  into  their  new  form.  That  new 
form  exhibited  a  marked  and  recognised  division  between  the  so- 
called  secular  and  spiritual  powers,  and  thereby  has  maintained  in 
Christian  Europe  the  unhappy  distinction  which  necessarily  pre- 
vailed in  the  heathen  empire  between  the  church  and  the  state  ;  a 
distinction  now  so  deeply  seated  in  our  laws,  our  language,  and  our 
very  notions,  that  nothing  less  than  a  miraculous  interposition  of 
God's  providence  seems  capable,  within  any  definite  time,  of  eradi- 
cating it." 

Hint,  of  Rome,  vol.  I.,  Preface,  viii. 
8 


86  NOTES 


NOTE  4.— Page  83. 

*  *  "  Law  is  more  or  less  the  expression  of  man's  reason,  aa 
opposed  to  his  interest  and  his  passion.  I  do  not  say  that  it  has 
ever  been  the  expression  of  pure  reason ;  it  has  not  been  so,  for 
man's  best  reason  is  not  pure.  Nor  has  it  been  often  free  from  the 
influence  of  interest,  nor  always  from  that  of  passion :  there  have 
been  unjust  laws  in  abundance  ;  cruel  and  vindictive  laws  have  not 
been  wanting.  Law,  in  short,  like  every  thing  human,  has  been 
greatly  corrupted,  but  still  it  has  never  lost  its  character  of  good 
altogether :  there  never,  I  suppose,  has  been  an  age  or  country  in 
which  the  laws,  however  bad,  were  not  better  than  no  law  at  all ; 
they  have  ever  preserved  something  of  their  essential  excellence — 
that  they  acknowledged  the  authority  of  right,  and  not  of  might. 
Again,  law  has,  and  must  have,  along  with  this  inherent  respect 
for  right  and  justice,  an  immense  power ;  it  is  that  which,  in  the 
last  resort,  controls  human  life.  It  is,  on  the  one  hand,  the  source 
of  the  highest  honours  and  advantages  which  men  can  bestow  on 
men ;  it  awards,  on  the  other  hand,  the  extremity  of  outward  evil 
— poverty,  dishonour,  and  death.  Here,  then,  we  have  a  mighty 
power,  necessary  by  the  very  condition  of  our  nature ;  clearly  good 
in  its  tendency,  however  corrupted,  and  therefore  assuredly  coming 
from  God,  and  swaying  the  whole  frame  of  human  society  with  su- 
preme dominion.  Such  is  law  in  itself;  such  is  a  kingdom  of  this 
world.  Now,  then,  conceive  this  law  ...  to  become  instinct  and 
inspired,  as  it  were,  by  the  spirit  of  Christ's  gospel ;  and  it  retains 
all  its  sovereign  power,  all  its  necessity,  all  its  original  and  inhe- 
rent virtue  ;  it  does  but  lose  its  corruptions ;  it  is  not  only  the  pure 
expression  pf  human  reason,  cleansed  from  interest  and  passion, 
but  the  expression  of  a  purer  reason  than  man's.  Law  in  a  Chris- 
tian country,  so  far  as  that  country  is  really  Christian,  has,  indeed, 
to  use  the  magnificent  language  of  Hooker,  her  seat  in  the  bosom 
of  God  ;  and  her  voice,  inasmuch  as  it  breathes  the  spirit  of  divine 
truth,  is  indeed  the  harmony  of  the  world." 

Arnold's  Sermons,  vol.  iv.,  p.  444. 

The  following  passage  in  Dr.  Arnold's  preface  to  the  third  vol- 


TO  APPENDIX  TO  INAUGURAL  LECTURE.       87 

ume  of  his  Thucydides,  has  a  bearing  on  the  opinions  in  the  Ap- 
pendix to  the  Inaugural  Lecture  : 

"There  is  another  point  not  peculiarly  connected  with  Thmy- 
dides,  except  so  far  as  he  may  be  considered  as  the  representative 
of  all  Grecian  history,  which  appears  to  me  deserving  of  notice ; 
that  state  of  imperfect  citizenship  so  common  in  Greece  under  the 
various  names  of  /u'roj/coi,  TreptWot,  OVVOIKOI,  etc.  This  is  a  matter  of 
importance,  as  bearing  upon  some  of  the  great  and  eternal  princi- 
ples of  political  science,  and  thus  applying  more  or  less  to  the 
history  of  every  age  and  nation. 

"  It  seems  to  be  assumed  in  modern  times  that  the  being  born  of 
free  parents  within  the  territory  of  any  particular  state,  and  the 
paying  towards  the  support  of  its  government,  conveys  a  natural 
claim  to  the  rights  of  citizenship.  In  the  ancient  world,  on  the 
contrary,  citizenship,  unless  specially  conferred  as  a  favour  by 
some  definite  law  or  charter,  was  derivable  only  from  race.  The 
descendants  of  a  foreigner  remained  foreigners  to  the  end  of  time  ; 
the  circumstance  of  their  being  born  and  bred  in  the  country  was 
held  to  make  no  change  in  their  condition ;  community  of  place 
could  no  more  convert  aliens  into  citizens  than  it  could  change  do- 
mestic animals  into  men.  Nor  did  the  paying  of  taxes  confer 
citizenship ;  taxation  was  the  price  paid  by  a  stranger  for  the  lib- 
erty of  residing  in  a  country  not  his  own,  and  for  the  protection 
afforded  by  its  laws  to  his  person  and  property  ;  but  it  was  thought 
to  have  no  necessary  connection  with  the  franchise  of  a  citizen,  far 
less  with  the  right  of  legislating  for  the  commonwealth. 

"  Citizenship  was  derived  from  race  ;  but  distinctions  of  race  were 
not  of  that  odious  and  fantastic  character  which  they  have  borne  in 
modern  times :  they  implied  real  differences  often  of  the  most  im- 
portant kind,  religious  and  moral.  Particular  races  worshipped 
particular  gods,  and  in  a  particular  manner.  But  different  gods 
had  different  attributes,  and  the  moral  image  thus  presented  to  the 
continual  contemplation  and  veneration  of  the  people  could  not  but 
produce  some  effect  on  the  national  character.  According  to  the 
attributes  of  the  god  was  the  nature  of  the  hymns  in  which  he  was 
celebrated :  even  the  music  varied ;  and  this  alone,  to  a  people  of 
such  lively  sensibilities  as  the  Greeks,  was  held  to  be  a  powerful 
moral  engine  ;  whilst  the  accompanying  ceremonies  of  the  worship 


88  NOTES 

enforced  with  still  greater  effect  the  impression  produced  by  the 
hymns  and  music.  Again,  particular  races  had  particular  cus- 
toms which  affected  the  relations  of  domestic  life  and  of  public. 
Amongst  some  polygamy  was  allowed,  amongst  others  forbidden ; 
some  held  infanticide  to  be  an  atrocious  crime,  others  in  certain 
cases  ordained  it  by  law.  Practices  and  professions  regarded  as 
infamous  by  some,  were  freely  tolerated  or  honoured  amongst  oth- 
ers ;  the  laws  of  property  and  of  inheritance  were  completely  va- 
rious. It  is  not  then  to  be  wondered  at  that  Thucydides,  when 
speaking  of  a  city  founded  jointly  by  lonians  and  Dorians,  should 
have  thought  it  right  to  add  *  that  the  prevailing  institutions  of  the 
place  were  the  Ionian ;'  for  according  as  they  were  derived  from 
one  or  the  other  of  the  two  races,  the  whole  character  of  the  peo- 
ple would  be  different.  And  therefore  the  mixture  of  persons  of 
different  race  in  the  same  commonwealth,  unless  one  race  had  a 
complete  ascendency,  tended  to  confuse  all  the  relations  of  life, 
and  all  men's  notions  of  right  and  wrong ;  or  by  compelling  men  to 
tolerate,  in  so  near  a  relation  as  that  of  fellow-citizens,  differences 
upon  the  main  point  of  human  life,  led  to  a  general  carelessness 
and  scepticism,  and  encouraged  the  notion  that  right  and  wrong 
have  no  real  existence,  but  are  the  mere  creatures  of  human 
opinion. 

"  But  the  interests  of  ambition  and  avarice  are  ever  impatient  of 
moral  barriers.  When  a  conquering  prince  or  people  had  formed  a 
vast  dominion  out  of  a  number  of  different  nations,  the  several  cus- 
toms and  religions  of  each  were  either  to  be  extirpated  or  melted 
into  one  mass,  in  which  each  learned  to  tolerate  those  of  its  neigh- 
bours and  to  despise  its  own.  And  the  same  blending  of  races, 
and  consequent  confusion  and  degeneracy  of  manners,  was  favoured 
by  commercial  policy ;  which,  regarding  men  solely  in  the  relation 
of  buyers  and  sellers,  considered  other  points  as  comparatively  un- 
important, and  in  order  to  win  customers  would  readily  sacrifice  01 
endanger  the  purity  of  moral  and  religious  institutions.  So  that  in 
the  ancient  world,  civilization,  which  grew  chiefly  out  of  conquest 
or  commerce,  went  almost  hand  in  hand  with  demoralization. 

"  Now  to  those  who  think  that  political  society  was  ordained  for 
higher  purposes  than  those  of  mere  police  or  of  traffic,  the  princi- 
ple of  the  ancient  commonwealths  in  making  agreement  in  religion 


TO  APPENDIX  TO  INAUGURAL  LECTURE.       89 

and  morals  the  test  of  citizenship,  cannot  but  appear  wise  and  good. 
And  yet  the  mixture  of  races  is  essential  to  the  improvement  of 
mankind,  and  an  exclusive  attachment  to  national  customs  is  in- 
compatible with  true  liberality.  How  then  was  the  problem  to  be 
solved  1  how  could  civilization  be  attained  without  moral  degene- 
racy ?  how  could  a  narrow-minded  bigotry  be  escaped  without  fall- 
ing into  the  worse  evil  of  Epicurean  indifference!  Christianity 
Vvas  answered  these  questions  most  satisfactorily,  by  making  reli- 
gious and  moral  agreement  independent  of  race  or  national  cus- 
toms ;  by  furnishing  us  with  a  sure  criterion  to  distinguish  between 
what  is  essential  and  eternal,  and  what  is  indifferent,  and  temporal 
or  local :  allowing,  nay,  commanding  us  to  be  with  regard  to  every 
thing  of  this  latter  kind  in  the  highest  degree  tolerant,  liberal,  and 
comprehensive  ;  while  it  gives  to  the  former  that  only  sanction  to 
which  implicit  reverence  may  safely  and  usefully  be  paid,  not  the 
fond  sanction  of  custom,  or  national  prejudice,  or  human  authority 
of  any  kind  whatever,  but  the  sanction  of  the  truth  of  God. 

"  That  bond  and  test  of  citizenship  then,  which  the  ancient  legis- 
lators were  compelled  to  seek  in  sameness  of  race,  because  thus 
only  could  they  avoid  the  worst  of  evils,  a  confusion  and  conse- 
quent indifference  in  men's  notions  of  right  and  wrong,  is  now  fur- 
nished to  us  in  the  profession  of  Christianity.  He  who  is  a  Chris- 
tian, let  his  race  be  what  it  will,  let  his  national  customs  be  ever  so 
different  from  ours,  is  fitted  to  become  our  fellow-citizen ;  for  his 
being  a  Christian  implies  that  he  retains  such  of  his  national  cus- 
toms only  as  are  morally  indifferent ;  and  for  all  such  we  ought  to 
feel  the  most  perfect  toleration.  He  who  is  not  a  Christian,  though 
his  family  may  have  lived  for  generations  on  the  same  soil  with  us, 
though  they  may  have  bought  and  sold  with  us,  though  they  may 
have  been  protected  by  our  laws,  and  paid*  taxes  in  return  for  that 

*  "  It  is  considered  in  our  days  that  those  who  are  possessed  of  property  in  a  coun- 
try ought  to  be  citizens  in  it :  the  ancient  maxim  was,  that  those  who  were  citizens 
ought  to  be  possessed  of  property.  The  difference  involved  in  these  two  different 
views  is  most  remarkable." 

In  one  of  his  letters  also,  Dr.  Arnold  remarks,  "  The  correlative  to  taxation,  in  my 
opinion,  is  not  citizenship  but  protection.  ...  To  confound  the  right  of  taxing  oneself 
with  the  right  of  general  legislation,  is  one  of  the  Jacobinical  confusions  of  later  days, 
arising  from  those  low  Warburtonian  notions  of  the  ends  of  political  society." 

Arnold's  mind  was  so  deeply  imbued  with  Greek  philosophy — especially  that  of  his 

8* 


90  NOTES    TO    APPENDIX,    ETC. 

protection,  is  yet  essentially  not  a  citizen  but  a  sojourner  ;  and  to 
admit  such  a  person  to  the  rights  of  citizenship  tends  in  principle 
to  the  confusion  of  right  and  wrong,  and  lowers  the  objects  of  po- 
litical society  to  such  as  are  merely  physical  and  external." 

The  reader,  who  desires  to  investigate  the  subject  discussed  in 
the  Appendix  to  the  Inaugural  Lecture,  may  consult,  besides  the 
authorities  referred  to  there,  the  following  works:  Coleridge's 
'  Constitution  of  Church  and  State  according  to  the  Idea  of  Eac.hJ 
Maurice's  '  Kingdo?n  of  Christ,"1  and  Derwent  Coleridge's  '  Scriptu- 
ral Character  of  the  English  Church."1 

chief  favourite  Aristotle,  his  feeling  for  whom  was  ever  finding  utterance  in  terms  of 
even  affectionate  and  familiar  endearment,  that  to  understand  him  rightly,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  bear  in  mind  how  much  higher  and  more  comprehensive  a  meaning  there  was 
in  the  Greek  'jrdXtrt^'  than  in  our  English  term  'politics.'  It  has  been  well  re- 
marked by  the  writer  of  the  article  '  Civitas*  in  the  'Diet,  of  Greek  and  Roman  An- 
tiquities,' that,  "  If  we  would  picture  to  ourselves  the  true  notion  which  the  Greeks 
embodied  in  the  word  wdXts,  we  must  lay  aside  all  modern  ideas  respecting  the  nature 
and  object  of  a  state.  With  us  practically,  if  not  in  theory,  the  essential  object  of  a 
state  hardly  embraces  more  than  the  protection  of  life  and  property.  The  Greeks,  on 
the  other  band,  had  the  most  vivid  conception  of  the  state  as  a  whole,  every  part  of 
which  was  to  co-operate  to  some  great  end,  to  which  all  other  duties  were  considered 
RS  subordinate." 


LECTURE  1, 


IT  will  not,  I  trust,  be  deemed  impertinent  or  affected,  if 
at  the  very  outset  of  these  Lectures  I  venture  again  to 
request  the  indulgence  of  my  hearers  for  the  many  deficien- 
cies which  will  undoubtedly  be  found  in  them.  I  could  not 
enter  on  the  duties  of  my  office  with  tolerable  cheerfulness, 
if  I  might  not  confess  how  imperfectly  I  can  hope  to  fulfil 
them.  And  this  is  the  more  necessary,  because  I  hope  that 
our  standard  of  excellence  in  history  will  be  continually 
rising  ;  we  shall  be  convinced,  I  trust,  more  and  more,  of 
the  vast  amount  of  knowledge  which  the  historical  student 
should  aim  at,  and  of  the  rare  union  of  high  qualifications 
required  in  a  perfect  historian.  Now  just  in  proportion  to 
your  sense  of  this,  must  be  unavoidably  your  sense  of  the 
defects  of  these  Lectures ;  because  I  must  often  dwell  on  the 
value  of  a  knowledge  which  I  do  not  possess  ;  and  must  thus 
lay  open  my  own  ignorance  by  the  very  course  which  I  be- 
lieve to  be  most  beneficial  to  my  hearers. 

I  would  gladly  consent,  however,  even  to  call  your  atten- 
tion to  my  want  of  knowledge,  because  it  is,  I  think,  of  such 
great  importance  to  all  of  us  to  have  a  lively  consciousness 
of  the  exact  limits  of  our  knowledge  and  our  ignorance.  A 
keen  sense  of  either  implies,  indeed,  an  equally  keen  sense 
of  the  other.  A  bad  geographer  looks  upon  the  map  of  a 
known  and  of  an  unknown  country  with  pretty  nearly  the 
same  eyes.  The  random  line  which  expresses  the  form  of  a 
coast  not  yet  explored  ;  the  streams  suddenly  stopping  in 


92  LECTURE  I. 

their  course,  or  as  suddenly  beginning  to  be  delineated,  be- 
cause their  outlet  or  their  sources  are  unknown;  these  convey 
to  the  eye  of  an  untaught  person  no  sense  of  deficiency, 
because  the  most  complete  survey  of  the  most  thoroughly 
explored  country  gives  him  no  sense  of  full  information. 
But  he  who  knows  how  to  value  a  good  map,  is  painfully 
aware  of  the  defects  of  a  bad  one  ;  and  he  who  feels  these 
defects,  would  also  value  the  opposite  excellencies.  And 
thus  in  all  things,  as  our  knowledge  and  ignorance  are  cu- 
riously intermixed  with  one  another,  so  it  is  most  important 
to  keep  the  limits  of  each  distinctly  traced,  that  we  may  be 
able  confidently  to  make  use  of  the  one,  while  we  endeavour 
to  remove  or  lessen  the  other. 

One  other  remark  of  a  different  nature  I  would  wish  to 
make  also,  before  I  enter  upon  my  lectures.  Considering 
that  the  great  questions  on  which  men  most  widely  differ  from 
each  other,  belong  almost  all  to  modern  history,  it  seems 
scarcely  possible  to  avoid  expressing  opinions  which  some  of 
my  hearers  will  think  erroneous.  Even  if  not  expressed 
they  would  probably  be  indicated,  and  I  do  not  know  how 
this  is  to  be  avoided.  Yet  I  shall  be  greatly  disappointed  if 
at  the  close  of  these  lectures,  our  feeling  of  agreement  with 
one  another  is  not  much  stronger  than  our  feeling  of  differ- 
ence. You  will  not  judge  me  so  hardly  as  to  suppose  that  I 
am  expressing  a  hope  of  proselytizing  any  one  :  my  mean- 
ing is  very  different.  But  I  suppose  that  all  calm  inquiry 
conducted  amongst  those  who  have  their  main  principles  of 
judgment  in  common,  leads,  if  not  to  an  approximation  of 
views,  yet  at  least  to  an  increase  of  sympathy.  And  the 
truths  of  historical  science,  which  I  certainly  believe  to  be 
very  real  and  very  important,  are  not  exactly  the  same  thing 
with  the  opinions  of  any  actual  party. 

I  will  now  detain  you  no  longer  with  any  prefatory  obser- 
vations, but  will  proceed  directly  to  our  subject.  I  will  sup- 


LECTURE   I.  93 

pose  then,  if  you  please,  the  case  of  a  member  of  this 
university  who  has  just  taken  his  degree,  and  finding  himself 
at  leisure  to  enter  now  more  fully  into  other  than  classical  or 
mathematical  studies,  proposes  to  apply  himself  to  modern 
history.  We  will  suppose,  moreover,  that  his  actual  know- 
ledge of  the  subject  goes  no  farther  than  what  he  has  collect- 
ed from  any  of  the  common  popular  compendiums.  And 
now  our  question  is,  in  what  manner  he  should  be  recom- 
mended to  proceed. 

We  must  allow  that  the  case  is  one  of  considerable  per- 
plexity. Hitherto  in  ancient  profane  history,  his  attention 
has  been  confined  almost  exclusively  to  two  countries  :  and 
to  a  few  great  writers  whose  superior  claims  to  attention  are 
indisputable.  Nay,  if  he  goes  farther,  and  endeavours  to 
illustrate  the  regular  historians  from  the  other  and  miscella- 
neous literature  of  the  period,  yet  his  work  in  most  cases  is 
to  be  accomplished  without  any  impossible  exertion  ;  for 
many  periods  indeed  of  ancient  history,  and  these  not  the 
least  interesting,  all  our  existing  materials  are  so  scanty  that 
it  takes  but  little  time  to  acquaint  ourselves  with  them  all, 
and  their  information  is  not  of  a  bulk  to  oppress  any  but  the 
very  feeblest  memory. 

How  overwhelming  is  the  contrast  when  the  student  turns 
to  modern  history  !  Instead  of  two  countries  claiming  his 
attention,  he  finds  several  systems  of  countries,  if  I  may  so 
speak,  any  one  of  which  offers  a  wide  field  of  inquiry.  First 
of  all,  there  is  the  history  of  Europe  ;  then  quite  distinct  from 
this  there  is  oriental  history;  and  thirdly,  there  is  the  history 
of  European  colonies.  But  when  we  turn  from  the  subjects 
of  inquiry  to  the  sources  of  information,  the  difference  is 
greater  still.  Consider  the  long  rows  of  folio  volumes  which 
present  themselves  to  our  notice  in  the  Bodleian,  or  in  our 
college  libraries  ;  and  think  how  many  of  these  relate  to 
modern  history.  There  is  the  Benedictine  collection  of  the 


94  LECTURE   I. 

early  French  historians,  and  Muratori's  great  collection  of 
the  Italian  historians  of  the  middle  ages  :  and  these,  vast  as 
they  are,  relate  only  to  two  countries,  and  to  particular 
periods.  What  shall  we  say  of  the  great  collections  of  works 
directly  subsidiary  to  history,  such  as  Rymer's  Fcedera,  and 
the  various  collections  of  treaties  ;  of  bodies  of  laws,  the 
statutes  at  large  for  example  for  England  only :  of  such 
works  as  the  publications  of  the  Record  Commission,  or  as 
the  Journals  of  the  Houses  of  Parliament.  Turning  then  to 
lighter  works,  which  contain  some  of  the  most  precious  mate- 
rials for  history,  we  find  the  countless  volumes  of  the  French 
memoirs,  magazines,  newspapers,  (it  is  enough  to  remind 
you  of  the  set  of  the  Moniteurs  in  the  Bodleian  ;)  correspond, 
ence  of  eminent  men  printed  or  in  MS.,  (the  library  at  Besanson 
contains  sixty  volumes  of  the  Letters  of  Granvella,  Charles 
the  Fifth's  great  minister,)  and  lastly,  the  swarm  of  miscella- 
neous pamphlets,  which  in  these  later  days  as  we  know  are 
in  numbers  numberless,  but  which  in  the  seventeenth  and 
even  in  the  sixteenth  centuries  were  more  numerous  than  we 
sometimes  are  aware  of.  There  is  a  collection  of  these  in 
Corpus  library  for  example,  of  which  i  retain  a  very  grateful 
recollection  for  many  hours  of  amusement  which  they  used 
to  afford  me.  I  might  go  on  and  extend  my  catalogue  till  it 
far  exceeded  the  length  of  the  Homeric  catalogue  of  the  ships : 
but  I  have  mentioned  quite  enough  for  my  purpose.  We 
may  well  conceive  that  amid  this  boundless  wilderness  of 
historical  materials,  the  student  may  be  oppressed  with  a 
sense  of  the  hopelessness  of  all  his  efforts  ;  which  way  shall 
he  choose  among  so  many  ?  what  progress  can  he  hope  to 
make  in  a  space  so  boundless  ? 

It  is  quite  manifest  that  a  choice  must  be  made  immedi- 
ately. The  English  student,  unless  determined  by  particular 
circumstances,  will  have  no  difficulty  in  seeing  that  European 
history  should  be  preferred  to  oriental  or  to  colonial ;  and  again, 


LECTURE    I.  95 

in  European  history  itself,  that  that  of  our  own  country,  or  of 
France,  or  of  Germany,  or  of  Italy,  has  a  peculiar  claim  on 
his  notice.  Next,  when  he  has  fixed  upon  the  country,  he 
has  to  determine  the  period  which  he  will  study,  whether  he 
will  apply  himself  to  any  one  of  the  three  last  centuries,  or 
to  the  middle  ages;  and  if  to  these  last,  whether  to  their 
earlier  period  or  to  their  close.  And  here  again,  particular 
circumstances  or  the  taste  of  the  student  will  of  course  in- 
fluence his  decision.  It  matters  very  little,  I  think,  on  which 
his  choice  may  happen  to  fall. 

We  will  suppose  then  the  choice  to  be  made  of  some  one 
period,  it  should  not  be  a  very  long  one,  whether  bounded  by 
merely  arbitrary  limits,  as  any  one  particular  century,  or  by 
such  as  constitute  a  natural  beginning  and  end,  as  for  ex- 
ample the  period  in  German  history  between  the  Reformation 
and  the  peace  of  Westphalia.  If  the  period  fixed  on  be  very 
short,  it  may  be  made  to  include  the  history  of  two  or  three 
countries ;  but  it  would  be-  best  perhaps  to  select  for  our 
principal  subject  one  country  only.  -  And  now  with  our  work 
limited  sufficiently  both  as  to  time  and  as  to  space,  it  will 
assume  a  more  compassable  shape :  and  we  shall  be  inclined 
to  set  about  it  vigorously. 

In  the  first  place  then  we  should  take,  I  think,  some  one 
history  as  nearly  contemporary  as  may  be,  and  written,  to 
speak  generally,  by  a  native  historian.  For  instance,  sup- 
pose that  our  subject  be  France  in  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  we  should  begin  by  reading  the  memoirs  of  Philip 
de  Comines.  The  reason  of  this  rule  is  evident ;  that  it  is 
important  to  look  at  an  age  or  country  in  its  own  point  of 
view ;  which  of  course  is  best  to  be  obtained  from  a  native 
and  contemporary  writer.  Such  a  history  is  in  fact  a  double 
lesson  :  it  gives  us  the  actions  and  the  mind  of  the  actors  at  the 
same  time,  telling  us  not  only  what  was  done,  but  with  what 
motives  and  in  what  spirit  it  was  done.  Again,  the  language 


96  LECTURE    I. 

of  a  native  contemporary  historian  is  the  language  of  those 
of  whom  he  is  writing ;  in  reading  him  we  are  in  some  sort 
hearing  them,  and  an  impression  of  the  style  and  peculiarities 
of  any  man's  language  is  an  important  help  towards  realizing 
our  notion  of  him  altogether.  I  know  not  whether  others 
have  been  struck  with  this  equally ;  but  for  myself  I  have 
seemed  to  gain  a  far  more  lively  impression  of  what  James 
the  First  was,  ever  since  I  read  those  humorous  scenes  in  the 
Fortunes  of  Nigel  which  remind  one  so  forcibly  that  he  spoke 
a  broad  Scotch  dialect.  (1) 

If  the  period  which  we  have  chosen  be  one  marked  by  im- 
portant foreign  wars,  it  will  be  desirable  also  to  read  another 
contemporary  history,  written  by  a  native  of  the  other  belli- 
gerent power.  The  same  war  is  regarded  so  differently  by 
the  two  parties  engaged  in  it,  that  it  is  of  importance  to  see  it 
in  more  than  one  point  of  view,  not  merely  for  the  correction 
of  military  details,  but  to  make  our  general  impressions  and 
our  sympathies  with  either  side  more  impartial.  And  in 
contemporary  histories  of  wars  we  have  the  passions  and  pre- 
judices of  both  parties  generally  expressed  with  all  their 
freshness,  even  in  cases  where  both  nations,  when  passion  has 
gone  to  sleep,  agree  in  passing  the  same  judgment.  Joan  of 
Arc  is  now  a  heroine  to  Englishmen  no  less  than  to  French- 
men :  but  in  the  fifteenth  century  she  was  looked  upon  by 
Englishmen  as  a  witch,  while  the  French  regarded  her  as  a 
messenger  sent  from  heaven.  (2) 

And  now  the  one  or  two  general  contemporary  histories  of 
our  period  having  put  us  in  possession  not  only  of  the  outline 
and  of  some  of  the  details  of  events,  but  also  of  the  prevailing 
tone  of  opinion  and  feeling,  we  next  proceed  to  a  process 
which  is  indeed  not  a  little  laborious,  and  in  many  places 
would  be  impracticable,  from  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  the 
books  required.  But  I  am  convinced  that  it  is  essential  to 
be  gone  through  once,  if  we  wish  to  learn  the  true  method  of 


LECTURE    I. 


97 


historical  investigation :  and  if  done  once,  for  one  period,  the 
benefit  of  it  will  be  felt  in  all  our  future  reading,  because  we 
shall  always  know  how  to  explore  below  the  surface,  when- 
ever we  wish  to  do  so,  and  we  shall  be  able  to  estimate 
rightly  those  popular  histories  which  after  all  must  be  our 
ordinary  sources  of  information,  except  where  we  find  it 
needful  to  carry  on  our  researches  more  deeply.  And  I  am 
addressing  those  who  having  the  benefit  of  the  libraries  of 
this  place,  can  really  carry  into  effect,  if  they  will,  such  a 
course  of  study  as  I  am  going  to  recommend.  I  cannot  in- 
deed too  earnestly  advise  every  one  who  is  resident  in  the 
university  to  seize  this  golden  time  for  his  own  reading,  whilst 
he  has  on  the  one  hand  the  riches  of  our  libraries  at  his 
command,  and  before  the  pressure  of  actual  life  has  come 
upon  him,  when  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  is  mostly  out 
of  the  question,  and  we  must  be  content  to  live  upon  what  we 
have  already  gained.  Many  and  many  a  time  since  I  ceased 
to  be  resident  in  Oxford,  has  the  sense  of  your  advantages 
been  forced  upon  my  mind ;  for  with  the  keenest  love  of  his- 
torical researches,  want  of  books  and  want  of  time  have  con- 
tinually thrown  obstacles  in  my  way ;  and  to  this  hour  I 
look  back  with  the  greatest  gratitude  to  the  libraries  and 
the  comparative  leisure  of  this  place,  as  having  enabled 
me  to  do  far  more  than  I  should  ever  have  been  able  to 
effect  elsewhere,  and  amidst  the  engagements  of  a  pro- 
iession. 

I  think  therefore  that  here  I  may  venture  to  recommend 
what  I  believe  to  be  the  best  method  of  historical  reading; 
for  although  even  here  there  will  be  more  or  less  impedi- 
ments in  the  way  of  our  carrying  it  out  completely,  still  the 
probability  is  that  some  may  have  both  the  will  and  the 
power  to  do  it ;  and  even  an  approximation  to  it,  and  a  re- 
garding it  as  the  standard  which  we  should  always  be  trying 
to  reach,  will,  I  think,  be  found  to  be  valuable. 

9 


98  LECTURE    I. 

To  proceed  therefore  with  our  supposed  student's  course 
of  reading.  Keeping  the  general  history  which  he  has  been 
reading  as  his  text,  and  getting  from  it  the  skeleton,  in  a 
manner,  of  the  future  figure,  he  must  now  break  forth  excur- 
sively to  the  right  and  left,  collecting  richness  and  fulness  of 
knowledge  from  the  most  various  sources.  For  example,  we 
will  suppose  that  where  his  popular  historian  has  mentioned 
that  an  alliance  was  concluded  between  two  powers,  or  a 
treaty  of  peace  agreed  upon,  he  first  of  all  resolves  to  consult 
the  actual  documents  themselves,  as  they  are  to  be  found  in 
some  one  of  the  great  collections  of  European  treaties,  or  if 
they  are  connected  with  English  history,  in  Rymer'sFcedera. 
By  comparing  the  actual  treaty  with  his  historian's  report  of 
its  provisions,  we  get  in  the  first  place  a  critical  process  of 
some  value,  inasmuch  as  the  historian's  accuracy  is  at  once 
tested  :  but  there  are  other  purposes  answered  besides.  An 
historian's  report  of  a  treaty  is  almost  always  an  abridgment 
of  it ;  minor  articles  will  probably  be  omitted,  and  the  rest 
condensed,  and  stripped  of  all  their  formal  language.  But 
our  object  now  being  to  reproduce  to  ourselves,  so  far  as  is 
possible,  the  very  life  of  the  period  which  we  are  studying, 
minute  particulars  help  us  to  do  this  j  nay,  the  very  formal 
enumeration  of  titles,  and  the  specification  of  towns  and  dis- 
tricts in  their  legal  style,  help  to  realize  the  time  to  us,  if  it 
be  only  from  their  very  particularity.  Every  common  his- 
tory records  the  substance  of  the  treaty  of  Troyes,  May,  1420, 
by  which  the  succession  to  the  crown  of  France  was  given 
to  Henry  the  Fifth.  But  the  treaty  in  itself,  or  the  English 
version  of  it  which  Henry  sent  over  to  England  to  be  pro- 
claimed there,  gives  a  far  more  lively  impression  of  the  tri- 
umphant state  of  the  great  conqueror,  and  the  utter  weakness 
of  the  poor  French  king,  Charles  the  Sixth,  in  the  ostentatious 
care  taken  to  provide  for  the  recognition  of  his  formal  title 
during  his  lifetime,  while  aH  real  power  is  ceded  to  Henry, 


LECTURE    I.  99 

and  provision  is  made  for  the  perpetual  union  hereafter  of  the 
two  kingdoms  under  his  sole  government. 

I  have  named  treaties  as  the  first  class  of  official  instru- 
ments to  be  consulted,  because  the  mention  of  them  occurs 
unavoidably  in  every  history.  Another  class  of  documents, 
certainly  of  no  less  importance,  yet  much  less  frequently  re- 
ferred to  by  popular  historians,  consists  of  statutes,  ordi- 
nances, proclamations,  acts,  or  by  whatever  various  names 
the  laws  of  each  particular  period  happen  to  be  designated. 
That  the  Statute  Book  has  not  been  more  habitually  referred 
to  by  writers  on  English  history,  has  always  seemed  to  me 
matter  of  surprise.  Legislation  has  not  perhaps  been  so 
busy  in  every  country  as  it  has  been  with  us,  yet  everywhere 
and  in  every  period  it  has  done  something :  evils  real  or  sup- 
posed have  always  existed,  which  the  supreme  power  in  the 
nation  has  endeavoured  to  remove  by  the  provisions  of  law. 
And  under  the  name  of  laws  I  would  include  the  acts  of 
councils,  which  form  an  important  part  of  the  history  of  Eu- 
ropean nations  during  many  centuries ;  provincial  councils, 
as  you  are  aware,  having  been  held  very  frequently,  and 
their  enactments  relating  to  local  and  particular  evils,  so  that 
they  illustrate  history  in  a  very  lively  manner.  Now  in 
these  and  all  the  other  laws  of  any  given  period,  we  find  in 
the  first  place  from  their  particularity  a  great  additional  help 
towards  becoming  familiar  with  the  times  in  which  they  were 
passed ;  we  learn  the  names  of  various  officers,  courts,  and 
processes ;  and  these,  when  understood,  (and  I  suppose  always 
the  habit  of  reading  nothing  without  taking  pains  to  under- 
stand it,)  help  us  from  their  very  number  to  realize  the  state 
of  things  then  existing;  a  lively  notion  of  any  object  depend- 
ing on  our  clearly  seeing  some  of  its  parts,  and  the  more  we 
people  it,  so  to  speak,  with  distinct  images,  the  more  it  comes 
to  resemble  the  crowded  world  around  us.  But  in  addition 
to  this  benefit,  which  I  am  disposed  to  rate  in  itself  very 


100 


LECTURE    I 


highly,  every  thing  of  the  nature  of  law  has  a  peculiar  in, 
terest  and  value,  because  it  is  the  expression  of  the  deliberate 
mind  of  the  supreme  government  of  society ;  and  as  history, 
as  commonly  written,  records  so  much  of  the  passionate  and 
unreflecting  part  of  human  nature,  we  are  bound  in  fairness 
to  acquaint  ourselves  with  its  calmer  and  better  part  also. 
And  then  if  we  find,  as  unhappily  we  often  shall  find,  that 
this  calmer  and  better  part  was  in  itself  neither  good  nor 
wise ;  that  law,  which  should  be  the  very  voice  of  justice, 
was  on  the  other  hand  unequal,  oppressive,  insolent ;  that  the 
deliberate  mind  of  the  ruling  spirits  of  any  age  was  sunk  in 
ignorance  or  perverted  by  wickedness,  then  we  may  feel  sure 
that  with  whatever  bright  spots  to  be  found  here  and  there, 
the  general  state  of  that  age  was  evil. 

I  am  imprudent  perhaps  in  leading  you  at  the  outset  of  our 
historical  studies  into  a  region  so  forbidding ;  the  large  vol- 
umes of  treaties  and  laws  with  which  I  have  recommended 
the  student  to  become  familiar,  may  seem  enough  to  crush 
the  boldest  spirit  of  enterprise.  There  is  an  alchemy,  how- 
ever,  which  can  change  these  apparently  dull  materials  into 
bright  gold ;  but  I  must  not  now  anticipate  the  mention  of  it. 
I  will  rather  proceed  to  offer  some  relief  to  the  student  by  in- 
viting  him  next  to  turn  to  volumes  of  a  very  different  charac- 
ter. Some  of  the  great  men  of  an  age  have  in  all  probability 
left  some  memorials  of  their  minds  behind  them,  speeches,  it 
may  be,  or  letters,  or  a  journal ;  or  possibly  works  of  a 
deeper  character,  in  which  they  have  handled,  expressly  and 
deliberately,  some  of  the  questions  which  most  interested  their 
generation.  Now  if  our  former  researches  have  enabled  us 
to  people  our  view  of  the  past  with  many  images  of  events, 
institutions,  usages,  titles,  &c.,  to  make  up  with  some  com- 
pleteness what  may  be  called  the  still  life  of  the  picture,  we 
shall  next  be  anxious  to  people  it  also  with  the  images  of  its 
great  individual  men,  to  change  it  as  it  were  from  a  land- 


LECTURE    I.  101 

scape  or  a  view  of  buildings,  to  what  may  truly  be  called  an 
historical  picture.  Whoever  has  made  himself  famous  by 
his  actions,  or  even  by  his  rank  or  position  in  society,  so  that 
his  name  is  at  once  familiar  to  our  ears,  such  a  man's 
writings  have  an  interest  for  us  even  before  we  begin  to  read 
them ;  the  instant  that  he  gets  up  as  it  were  to  address  us, 
we  are  hushed  into  the  deepest  attention.  These  works  give 
us  an  insight  not  only  into  the  spirit  of  an  age,  as  exemplified 
in  the  minds  of  its  greatest  men,  but  they  multiply  in  some 
sort  the  number  of  those  with  whom  we  are  personally  and 
individually  in  sympathy ;  they  enable  us  to  recognise 
amidst  the  dimness  of  remote  and  uncongenial  ages,  the  fea- 
tures of  friends  and  of  brethren. 

But  the  greatest,  or  at  least  the  most  active  men  of  an  age, 
may  have  left  but  little  behind  them  in  writing  ;  memorials 
of  this  kind,  however  precious,  will  often  be  but  few.  We 
next  then  consider  who  those  were  who  were  eminent  by  their 
writings  only,  who  before  they  began  to  speak  had  no  pecu- 
liar claim  to  be  heard,  but  who  won  and  fixed  attention  by  the 
wisdom  or  eloquence  of  what  they  uttered.  Or  again,  to  take 
a  still  lower  step,  there  may  have  been  men  who  spoke  only 
to  a  limited  audience,  men  of  eminence  merely  in  their  own 
profession  or  study,  but  who  within  their  own  precinct  were 
listened  to,  and  exercised  considerable  influence.  Yet  once 
again,  there  is  a  still  lower  division  of  literature,  there  are 
works  neither  of  men  great  by  their  actions,  nor  of  men 
proved  to  be  great  by  these  very  works  themselves ;  nor  of 
men,  who  though  not  great  properly  in  any  sense,  were  yet 
within  a  certain  circle  respected  and  influential ;  but  works 
written  by  common  persons  for  common  persons,  works  writ- 
ten because  the  profession,  or  circumstances,  or  necessities 
of  their  authors  led  them  to  write,  second  and  third  rate 
works  of  theology,  second  and  third  rate  political,  or  legal, 
or  philosophical,  or  literary  disquisitions,  ordinary  histories, 

9* 


102  LECTURE    I 

poetry  of  that  class  which  is  to  a  proverb  worthless,  novels 
and  tales  which  no  man  reads  twice,  and  only  an  indiscrimi- 
nate literary  voracity  would  read  once.  Time  gives  even  to 
this  mass  of  rubbish  an  accidental  value ;  what  was  in  its 
lifetime  mere  moss,  becomes  in  the  lapse  of  ages,  after  being 
buried  in  its  peat-bed,  of  some  value  as  fuel ;  it  is  capable  of 
yielding  both  light  and  heat.  And  so  even  the  most  worth- 
less pieces  of  the  literature  of  a  remote  period,  contain  in 
them  both  instruction  and  amusement.  The  historical  student 
should  consult  such  of  these  as  time  has  spared ;  all  the  four 
divisions  of  the  literature  of  a  period  which  I  have  mentioned, 
should  engage  his  attention,  not  all  certainly  in  an  equal  de- 
gree, but  all  are  of  importance  towards  that  object  which  at 
this  part  of  his  course  he  is  especially  pursuing  ;  the  realizing 
to  himself,  I  mean,  as  vividly  and  as  perfectly  as  possible,  all 
the  varied  aspects  of  the  period  which  he  is  investigating. 

I  feel  sure  that  whilst  I  have  been  reading  the  three  or  four 
last  pages,  I  have  been  drawing  rather  largely  on  your  kind 
readiness  to  put  the  best  construction  on  my  words  which 
they  will  possibly  bear.  But  after  all,  you  must  I  fear  be 
unable  to  acquit  me  of  great  extravagance,  in  recommending 
the  student  to  make  himself  acquainted  with  the  whole  litera- 
ture of  the  period  of  which  he  wishes  to  learn  the  history.  1 
trust,  however,  to  clear  myself  of  this  imputation,  by  ex- 
plaining in  what  manner  so  wide  a  range  of  reading  is  really 
practicable.  There  is  no  greater  confusion  than  exists  in 
many  men's  notions  of  deep  and  superficial  reading.  It  is 
often  supposed,  I  believe,  that  deep  reading  consists  in  going 
through  many  books  from  beginning  to  end,  superficial  read- 
ing in  looking  only  at  parts  of  them.  But  depth  and  shal- 
lowness  have  reference  properly  to  our  particular  object :  so 
that  the  very  same  amount  of  reading  may  be  superficial  in 
one  sense,  and  deep  in  another.  For  example,  I  want  to 
know  whether  a  peculiar  mode  of  expression  occurs  in  a 


LECTURE    I.  103 

given  writer ;  an  expression,  we  will  say,  supposed  to  have 
come  into  existence  only  at  a  later  period.  Now  with  a  view 
to  this  object,  any  thing  short  of  an  almost  complete  perusal 
of  the  writer's  works  from  beginning  to  end  is  superficial : 
because  I  cannot  be  in  a  condition  to  decide  the  question  on 
a  partial  hearing  of  the  evidence ;  and  the  evidence  in  this 
case  is  not  any  given  portion  of  the  author's  writings,  but  the 
whole  of  them.  Again,  if  I  wish  to  know  what  a  writer  has 
said  on  some  one  particular  subject,  and  he  has  written  an 
express  work  on  this  subject,  my  reading  is  not  superficial  if 
I  go  through  that  one  work,  although  I  may  leave  a  hundred 
of  his  works  on  other  subjects  unread  altogether.  Now  for 
what  purpose  is  it  that  we  wish  to  consult  the  general  second- 
rate  literature  of  a  period,  as  an  illustration  of  its  history  ? 
Is  it  not  in  order  to  discover  what  was  the  prevailing  tone 
and  taste  of  men's  minds ;  how  they  reasoned ;  what  ideas 
had  most  possession  of  them ;  what  they  knew,  and  what  use 
they  made  of  their  knowledge  ?  For  this  object,  a  judicious 
selection  following  a  general  survey  of  the  contents  of  an 
author's  works  is  really  quite  sufficient.  We  take  the  vol- 
ume or  volumes  of  them  into  our  hands ;  we  look  at  the  con- 
tents, and  so  learn  the  subjects  and  nature  of  his  several 
writings.  It  may  be  and  often  is  the  case,  that  amongst  them 
we  find  some  letters;  on  these  we  should  fasten  immediately, 
and  read  through  several  of  them,  taking  some  from  different 
periods  of  his  life,  if  his  correspondence  run  through  several 
years.  Again,  his  works  may  contain  treatises,  we  will  say, 
on  various  subjects ;  if  he  be  a  theologian,  they  may  contain 
commentaries  also  on  the  whole  or  parts  of  the  Scripture ;  or 
controversial  tracts,  or  meditations  and  prayers.  Amongst  his 
treatises  we  should  select  such  as  must  from  their  subject 
call  forth  the  character  of  his  mind  most  fully ;  and  one  or 
two  of  these  we  should  read  through.  So  again,  we  can  test 
his  character  as  a  commentator  by  consulting  him  on  such 


104  LECTURE    I. 

parts  of  Scripture  as  necessarily  lead  to  the  fullest  develop- 
ment of  his  opinions  and  knowledge ;  and  we  can  deal  in  a 
similar  way  with  his  other  writings.  If  he  be  an  historian,  a 
portion  of  his  work  will  certainly  display  his  historical  powers 
sufficiently ;  if  he  be  a  poet,  the  strength  and  character  of 
his  genius  will  appear,  without  our  reading  every  line  which 
he  has  written.  It  is  possible  certainly  that  an  estimate  so 
formed  may  not  be  altogether  correct  j  we  should  not  value 
Shakespeare  sufficiently  without  being  acquainted  with  all 
his  great  plays ;  yet  even  in  the  case  of  Shakespeare,  a 
knowledge  of  any  one  of  his  best  tragedies,  and  any  one  of 
his  best  comedies,  would  give  us  a  notion  faithful  in  kind, 
although  requiring  to  be  augmented  in  degree.  But  what  I 
am  saying  does  not  apply  to  the  works  of  the  very  highest 
class  of  minds,  but  to  the  mass  of  ordinary  literature ;  and 
surely  any  one  canto  of  Glover's  Leonidas  would  enable 
us  to  judge  very  fairly  of  the  merits  and  style  of  the  poem  ; 
and  half  a  dozen  of  the  letters  of  Junius  would  express  faith- 
fully the  excellencies  and  faults  of  the  author  as  a  political 
writer,  without  our  being  obliged  to  read  through  the  whole 
volume.  (3) 

That,  however,  is  really  superficial  reading,,  which  dips 
merely  into  a  great  many  places  of  a  volume  at  random,  and 
studies  no  considerable  portion  of  it  consecutively.  One 
whole  treatise  upon  a  striking  subject  may,  and  will,  give  us 
an  accurate  estimate  of  a  writer's  powers  ;  it  will  exhibit  his 
way  of  handling  a  question,  his  fairness  or  unfairness,  his 
judgment,  his  clearness,  his  eloquence,  or  his  powers  of  rea- 
soning. One  single  treatise  out  of  a  great  many  will  show 
us  this,  but  not  mere  extracts  even  from  many  treatises. 
Particular  passages  selected,  whether  for  good  or  for  bad,  are 
really  apt  to  remind  one  of  the  brick  which  the  old  pedant 
carried  about  as  a  specimen  of  his  house.  It  is  vain  to  judge 
of  any  writer  from  isolated  quotations,  least  of  all,  when  we 


LECTURE    I.  105 

want  to  judge  of  him  as  illustrating  the  views  and  habits  of 
his  time.  Nothing  can  be  more  unsafe  than  to  venture  to 
criticise  the  literature  of  a  period  from  turning  over  the  pages 
even  of  the  fullest  literary  history :  Tiraboschi  is  invaluable 
as  a  book  of  reference,  furnishing  us  with  the  number  of 
Italian  writers  who  flourished  at  any  one  time,  and  with  a 
catalogue  raisonnee  of  their  writings ;  but  a  catalogue  is  to 
guide  research,  not  to  supersede  it.  Besides,  quotations  made 
from  writers  to  show  the  character  of  their  opinions,  are  not 
always  to  be  trusted  even  for  their  honesty.  One  instance 
of  this  is  so  remarkable,  and  affords  so  memorable  a  warning, 
that  I  cannot  refrain  from  noticing  it,  as  it  may  possibly  be 
new  to  some  of  my  hearers.  Mosheim,  in  his  Ecclesiastical 
History,  gave  in  one  of  his  notes  the  following  passage  from 
the  works  of  Eligius  or  Eloy,  bishop  of  Noyon  in  the  middle 
of  the  seventh  century,  as  a  specimen  of  the  false  notions  of 
Christian  duty  entertained  generally  at  that  period,  even  by 
men  of  the  highest  reputed  holiness.*  Robertson,  in  his  notes 

*  Text  of  Mosheim.  "  The  Christians  of  this  century  (the  seventh)  seemed 
by  their  superstitious  doctrine  to  exclude  from  the  kingdom  of  heaven  such  as 
had  not  contributed  by  their  offerings  to  augment  the  riches  of  the  clergy  or 
the  church."  Century  VII.  part  ii.  ch.  3,  edit.  8vo.  1806. 

His  note  is  as  follows :  "  S.  Eligius  or  Eloi  expresses  himself  upon  this  matter 
in  the  following  manner :  Bonus  Christianus  est  qui  ad  ecclesiam  frequenter 
venit,  et  oblationem,  quce  in  altari  Deo  offeratur,  exhibet:  qui  de  fructibus  suis 
non  gustat  nisi  prius  Deo  aliquid  offerat :  qui  quoties  sanctse  solemnitates  ad- 
veniunt,  ante  dies  plures  castitatem  etiam  cum  propria  uxore  custodit,  ut 
secura  conscientia  Domini  altare  accedere  possit ;  qui  postremo  symbolum 
vel  orationem  Dominicam  memoriter  tenet  .  .  .  Redimite  animas  vestras  de 
poena,  dum  habetis  in  potestate  remedia  .  .  .  oblationes  et  decimas  ecclesiis 
oiferte,  luminaria  sanctis  locisjuxtaquod  habetis,  exhibete  .  .  .  ad  ecclesiam 
quoque  frequentius  convenite,  sanctorum  patrocinia  humiliter  expetite  .  .  . 
quod  si  observaveritis,  securi  in  die  judicii  ante  tribunal  seterni  judicis  veni- 
entes  dicetis :  Da,  Dornine,  quia  dedimus."  Maclaine,  the  English  translator, 
then  adds  this  farther  note  of  his  own  f  "  We  see  here  a  large  and  ample  de- 
scription of  the  character  of  a  good  Christian,  in  which  there  is  not  the  least 
mention  of  the  love  of  God,  resignation  to  his  will,  obedience  to  his  laws,  or 
of  justice,  benevolence,  and  charity  towards  men,  and  in  which  the  whole  of 
religion  is  made  to  consist  in  coming  often  to  the  church,  bringing  offerings 


106  LECTURE   I. 

to  his  Charles  V.,  borrowed  the  quotation,  to  prove,  that  at 
that  period  "  men  instead  of  aspiring  to  sanctity  and  virtue, 


lo  the  altar,  lighting  candles  in  consecrated  places,  and  such  like  vain  ser- 
vices." 

I  am  glad  to  say  that  Schrockh,  although  he  quotes  the  passage  as  showing 
how  much  stress  was  laid  on  gifts  to  the  church,  yet  quotes  it  quite  fairly, 
without  garbling,  and  expressly  says  before  he  begins  to  quote  it,  "  Man  muss 
gestehen,  dass  darunter  viel  wahres  und  schriftmassiges  vorkommt."  Christl 
Kirch.  Geschichte.  xix  Theil.  p.  438,  ed.  1794.  Leipzig.  The  whole  passage 
is  as  follows : 

"  Qui  verus  Christianus  vult  ease,  heec  ei  necesse  est  prcecepta,  custodire ;  si 
cnim  non  custodit,  ipse  se  circumvenit.  Ille  itaque  bonus  Christianus  est,  qui 
nulla  phylacteria  vel  adinventiones  diaboli  credit,  sed  omnem  spem  suam  in 
solo  Christo  ponit :  qui  peregrinos  tanquam  ipsum  Christum  cum  gaudio  sus- 
cipit,  quia  ipse  dicit,  Hospes  fui  et  suscepistis  me  ;  Et,  quando  fecistis  uni  ex 
minimis  meis  mihi  fecistis.  Ille  inquam  bonus  Christianus  est  qui  hospitibua 
pedes  lavat,  et  tanquam  parentes  carissimos  diligit,  qui  juxta  quod  habet  pau- 
peribus  eleemosynam  tribuit,  qui  ad  ecclesiam  frequenter  venit,  et  oblationem 
quoe  in  altari  Deo  offeratur  exhibet,  qui  de  fructibus  suis  non  gustat,  nisi  prius 
Deo  aliquid  offerat :  qui  stateras  dolosas  et  mensuras  duplices  non  habet ;  qui 
pecuniam  suam  non  dedit  ad  usuram ;  qui  ipse  caste  vivit  et  filios  vel  vicinoa 
docet,  ut  caste  et  cum  timore  Dei  vivant :  et  quoties  sane  tee  solennitates  ad- 
veniunt  ante  dies  plures  castitatem  etiam  cum  propriA.  uxore  custodit,  ut 
eecuri  conscienti&  Domini  altare  accedere  possit:  qui  postremo  symbolum 
vel  orationem  dominicam  memoriter  tenet,  et  filios  ac  familiam  eandem  docet. 
Qui  talis  est,  sine  dubio  verus  Christianus  est,  sed  et  Christus  in  ipso  habitat, 
qui  dixit,  Ego  et  pater  veniemus  et  mansionem  apud  eum  faciemus.  Similiter 
et  per  prophetam  dixit,  Ego  inhabitabo  in  eis  et  inter  illos  ambulabo,  et  ero 
illorum  Deus. 

"  Ecce  audistis  fratres  quales  sint  Christiani  boni,  ideo  quantum  potestis  cum 
Dei  adjutorio  laborate,  ut  nomen  Christianum  non  sit  falsum  in  vobis,  sed  ut 
veri  Christiani  esse  possitis :  semper  preecepta  Christi  et  cogitate  in  mente,  et 
j.mplete  in  operatione.  Redimite  animas  vestras  de  poend,  dum  habetis  in  po- 
testate  remedia :  eleemosynam  juxta  vires  facite,  pacem  et  charitatem  habete, 
discordes  ad  concordiam  revocate,  mendacium  fugite,  perjurium  expavescite, 
falsum  testimonium  non  dicite,  furtum  non  facite:  oblationes  et  decimas 
ecclesiis  offerte,  luminaria  sanctis  locis  juxta  quod  habetis,  exhibete,  symbolum 
et  orationem  Dominicam  memorial  retinete  et  filiis  vestris  insinuate,  filios  etiam 
quos  ex  baptismo  suscepistis  docete  et  castigate  ut  semper  cum  timore  Dei 
vivant :  scitote  vos  fidejussores  pro  ipsis  apud  Deum  esse.  Ad  ecclesiam  quo- 
que  frequenter  convenite,  sanctorum  patrocinia  humiliter  expetite  ;  diem  Do- 
minicum  pro  reverentia  resurrectionis  Christi  absque  ullo  servili  opere  colite, 
sanctorum  solemnitates  pio  affectu  celebrate,  proximos  vestros  sicut  vos  ipsos 
diligite :  quod  vobis  vultis  ab  aliis  fieri  hoc  et  vos  aliis  facite  :  quod  vobis  non 
vultis  fieri  nulli  facite  :  charitatem  ante  omnia  habete,  quia  charitas  operit 


LECTURE    I  107 

imagined  that  they  satisfied  every  obligation  of  duty  by  a 
scrupulous  observance  of  external  ceremonies."  Mr.  Hal* 
lam,  in  the  first  editions  of  his  work  on  the  Middle  Ages,  (in 
the  later  editions  the  error  has  been  corrected,)  transcribed  it 
into  his  account  of  the  state  of  society,  to  show  that  "  priests 
made  submission  to  the  church  not  only  the  condition  but  the 
measure  of  all  praise."  Dr.  Waddington,  in  the  text  of  his 
History  of  the  Church,  had  referred  to  the  self-same  passage, 
which  he  gave  accordingly,  still  copied  from  Mosheim,  in  a 
note  at  the  foot  of  his  page.  But  being  led  to  inquire  a  little 
more  fully  into  the  matter,  he  found  the  whole  passage  in 
D'Acheri's  Spiciiegium  Veterum  Scriptorum,  (D'Acheri  was 
one  of  the  learned  French  Benedictines  of  the  seventeenth 
century,)  and  there  he  discovered  that  the  quotation  in  Mo- 
sheim, which  Robertson,  and  Mr.  Hallam,  and  himself  had 
all  copied  from  him  in  reliance  on  its  fidelity,  was  utterly 
garbled,  as  you  will  see  for  yourselves  when  I  read  it  to  you 
at  length.  Here  then  is  Eligius  quoted  by  successive  histo* 
rians  as  proving  what  his  real  words  do  in  fact  effectually 


multitudinem  peccatorum :  estote  hospitates,  humiles,  omnem  solicitudinem 
vestram  ponentes  in  Deum,  quoniam  ipsi  cura  est  de  vobis.  Infirmos  visitate, 
carceratos  requirite,  peregrines  suscipite,  esurientes  pascite,  nudos  vestite. 
Ariolos  et  magos  spernite :  sit  vobis  aequalitas  in  pondere  et  mensur& :  sit 
statera  justa,  Justus  modius,  cequusque  sextarius,  nee  plusquam  dedistis  repe- 
tatis,  neque  usuras  pro  fenerata  pecunia  a  quoquam  exigatis.  Quod  si  obser- 
vaveritis,  securi  in  die  judicii  ante  tribunal  seterni  judicis  venientes  dicetis, 
Da  Domine,  quia  dedimus;  miserere,  quia  misericordiam  fecimus ;  nos  im- 
plevimus  quod  jussisti,  tu  redde  quod  promisisti," 

I  am  only  concerned  with  this  passage  as  an  instance  of  great  misrepresen- 
tation :  there  is  enough  really  bad  in  Eligius's  theology  to  make  it  unnecessary 
to  make  it  worse ;  and  after  all,  how  far  it  is  Eligius's  doctrine  or  not  is  very 
questionable ;  for  the  author  of  his  Life  merely  professes  to  give  the  substance 
of  his  general  teaching,  to  which  he  devotes  eleven  folio  pages  of  double  col- 
umns. It  does  not  appear  that  it  is  more  than  a  vague  traditional  impression 
of  what  he  used  to  say ;  and  the  Life  in  which  it  appears,  though  professing  to 
be  written  by  S.  Ouen,  has  been  greatly  interpolated,  according  to  Baluze,  by 
a  later  hand.  The  above  extract  has  been  made  from  Baluze's  edition  of 
D'Achery,  3  vols.  folio.  Paris,  1723.  Vol.  ii.  pp,  96,  97. 


10S  LECTURE    I. 

disprove  Well  might  Niebuhr  protest  against  the  practice 
of  making  quotations  at  second  hand,  instead  of  going  our- 
selves  to  the  original  source.  To  do  this  is  indeed  a  sort 
of  superficial  reading  which  we  cannot  be  too  careful  to 
avoid.  (4) 

You  will  therefore,  I  trust,  acquit  me  of  recommending 
any  thing  which  really  deserves  the  name  of  superficial  read- 
ing ;  and  yet  I  think  that  by  following  the  method  which  1 
have  suggested,  we  may  arrive  at  a  very  just  and  full  know- 
ledge  of  the  character  of  the  literature  of  a  period,  and  thereby 
of  the  period  itself,  without  undergoing  any  extravagant 
burden  of  labor,  or  sacrificing  an  undue  portion  of  time. 
And  by  such  means,  followed  up  still  farther  by  those  who 
have  a  taste  for  such  studies,  by  inquiring  into  the  state  of 
art,  whether  in  painting,  sculpture,  or  architecture,  or  as 
exemplified  in  matters  of  common  life,  we  may  I  think  imbue 
ourselves,  effectually  with  the  spirit  of  a  period,  no  less  than 
with  the  actual  events  which  it  witnessed  ;  we  may  be  able 
to  image  it  to  our  minds  in  detail,  and  conceive  of  it  as  of  an 
object  with  which  we  are  really  familiar. 

But  is  our  work  now  done  ?  Is  this  full  and  distinct  im- 
pression of  the  events,  characters,  institutions,  manners,  and 
ways  of  thinking  of  any  period,  that  true  historical  knowledge 
which  we  require  ?  The  answer  at  once  is  "  No."  What 
we  have  attained  to  is  no  more  than  antiquarianism,  an  indis- 
pensable element  in  history,  but  not  history  itself.  Anti- 
quarianism is  no  teacher  of  wisdom  ;  on  the  contrary,  few 
things  seem  more  to  contract  and  enfeeble  the  mind,  few 
things  differ  more  widely  from  that  comprehensive  view 
which  becomes  the  true  historian.  And  this  is  a  point  so 
important  that  I  must  venture  to  dwell  upon  it  a  little  more 
particularly. 

What  is  it  that  the  mere  antiquarian  wants,  and  which  the 
mere  scholar  wants  also  ;  so  that  satire,  sagacious  enough  in 


LECTURE    I.  109 

detecting  the  weak  points  of  every  character,  has  often  held 
them  both  up  to  ridicule  ?  They  have  wanted  what  is  the 
essential  accompaniment  to  all  our  knowledge  of  the  past,  a 
lively  and  extensive  knowledge  of  the  present ;  they  wanted 
the  habit  of  continually  viewing  the  two  in  combination  with 
each  other ;  they  wanted  that  master  power,  which  enables 
us  to  take  a  point  from  which  to  contemplate  both  at  a  dis- 
tance, and  so  to  judge  of  each  and  of  both  as  if  we  belonged 
to  neither.  For  it  is  from  the  views  so  obtained,  from  the  con- 
clusions so  acquired,  that  the  wisdom  is  formed  which  may 
really  assist  in  shaping  and  preparing  the  course  of  the  future. 
Antiquarianism,  then,  is  the  knowledge  of  the  past  enjoyed 
by  one  who  has  no  lively  knowledge  of  the  present.  Thence 
it  is,  when  concerned  with  great  matters,  a  dull  knowledge. 
It  may  be  lively  in  little  things,  it  may  conceive  vividly  the 
shape  -and  color  of  a  dress,  or  the  style  of  a  building,  because 
no  man  can  be  so  ignorant  as  not  to  have  a  distinct  notion  of 
these  in  his  own  times ;  he  must  have  a  full  conception  of 
the  coat  he  wears  and  the  house  he  lives  in.  But  the  past 
is  reflected  to  us  by  the  present ;  so  far  as  we  see  and  under- 
stand the  present,  so  far  we  can  see  and  understand  the  past : 
so  far  but  no  farther.  And  this  is  the  reason  why  scholars 
and  antiquarians,  nay,  and  men  calling  themselves  historians 
also,  have  written  so  uninstructively  of  the  ancient  world  : 
they  could  do  no  otherwise,  for  they  did  not  understand  the 
world  around  them.  How  can  he  comprehend  the  parties  of 
other  days,  who  has  no  clear  notion  of  those  of  his  own  ?  What 
sense  can  he  have  of  the  progress  of  the  great  contest  of  human 
affairs  in  its  earlier  stages,  when  it  rages  around  him  at  this 
actual  moment  unnoticed,  or  felt  to  be  no  more  than  a  mere 
indistinct  hubbub  of  sounds  and  confusion  of  weapons  ? — 
what  cause  is  at  issue  in  the  combat  he  knows  not.  Whereas 
on  the  other  hand,  he  who  feels  his  own  times  keenly,  to 
whom  they  are  a  positive  reality,  with  a  good  and  evil  dis- 

10 


110  LECTURE    I. 

tinctly  perceived  in  them,  such  a  man  will  write  a  lively 
and  impressive  account  of  past  times,  even  though  his  know- 
ledge be  insufficient,  and  his  prejudices  strong.  This  I  think 
is  the  merit  of  Mitford,  and  it  is  a  great  one.  His  very  anti- 
jacobin  partialities,  much  as  they  have  interfered  with  the 
fairness  of  his  history,  have  yet  completely  saved  it  from 
being  dull.  He  took  an  interest  in  the  parties  of  Greece 
because  he  was  alive  to  the  parties  of  his  own  time  :  he 
described  the  popular  party  in  Athens  just  as  he  would  have 
described  the  whigs  of  England ;  he  was  unjust  to  Demos- 
thenes because  he  would  have  been  unjust  to  Mr.  Fox.  His 
knowledge  of  the  Greek  language  was  limited,  and  so  was 
his  learning  altogether ;  but  because  he  was  an  English 
gentleman  who  felt  and  understood  the  state  of  things  around 
him,  and  entered  warmly  into  its  parties,  therefore  he  was 
able  to  write  a  history  of  Greece,  which  has  the  great  charm 
of  reality  ;  and  which,  if  I  may  judge  by  my  own  experience, 
is  read  at  first  with  interest  and  retains  its  hold  firmly  on  the 
memory.  (5) 

This  is  an  example  of  what  I  mean  ;  and  it  were  easy  to 
add  others.  Raleigh  had  perhaps  less  learning  than  Mitford ; 
he  had  at  no  time  of  his  life  the  leisure  or  the  opportunity  to 
collect  a  great  store  of  antiquarian  knowledge.  But  he  had 
seen  life  in  his  own  times  extensively,  and  entered  keenly 
into  its  various  pursuits.  Soldier,  seaman,  court  favorite,  I 
am  afraid  we  must  add,  intriguer,  war  and  policy  were  per- 
fectly  familiar  to  him.  His  accounts  therefore  of  ancient 
affairs  have  also  a  peculiar  charm  ;  they  too  are  a  reality  ; 
he  entered  into  the  difficulties  of  ancient  generals  from 
remembering  what  he  had  himself  experienced ;  he  related 
their  gallant  actions  with  all  his  heart,  recollecting  what  he 
had  himself  seen  and  done.  (6)  Now  I  am  well  aware  that 
this  lively  notion  of  our  own  times  is  extraneous  to  any  course 
of  historical  study,  and  depends  on  other  causes  than  those 


LECTURE    I.  Ill 

with  which  we  are  concerned  now.  And  farther,  even  under 
favorable  circumstances,  it  can  scarcely  be  attained  in 
perfection  by  a  young  man,  whose  experience  of  life  and  its 
business  is  necessarily  scanty.  But  where  it  does  riot  exist, 
it  is  of  importance  that  we  should  be  aware  of  the  greatness 
of  the  defect,  and  to  take  care  lest  while  it  destroys  the  benefit 
of  our  historical  studies,  they  in  their  turn  should  aggravate 
it,  and  thus  each  should  go  on  with  an  effect  reciprocally 
injurious.  And  we  should  try,  if  not  by  the  most  effectual 
means  then  by  some  of  inferior  virtue,  to  prevent  our  historical 
studies  from  becoming  mere  antiquarianism.  Accordingly, 
after  having  made  ourselves  familiar  with  the  spirit  of  any 
given  period  from  a  study  of  the  different  writers  of  the  period 
itself,  we  should  turn  to  a  history  of  it  written  by  a  modern 
writer,  and  observe  how  its  peculiarities  accord  with  those  of 
a  different  age,  and  what  judgment  is  passed  by  posterity 
upon  its  favorite  views  and  practices.  It  does  not  follow  that 
this  judgment  is  to  be  an  infallible  guide  to  ours,  but  it  is 
useful  to  listen  to  it,  for  in  some  points  it  will  certainly  be 
true,  and  its  very  difference  from  the  judgment  of  our  earlier 
period,  even  where  it  runs  into  an  opposite  extreme,  is  of 
itself  worth  attending  to.  And  thus  by  seeing  what  was 
underrated  once  receiving  its  due  and  perhaps  more  than  its 
due  honor  at  a  subsequent  period,  and  by  observing  that 
what  is  now  unjustly  slighted  was  in  times  past  excessively 
overvalued,  we  shall  escape  that  Quixotism  of  zeal,  whether 
for  or  against  any  particular  institution,  which  is  apt  to  be 
the  result  of  a  limited  knowledge  ;  as  if  what  we  now  find 
over  honored  or  too  much  despised,  had  never  undergone  the 
opposite  fate  ;  as  if  it  were  for  us  now  to  redress  for  the  first 
time  the  injustice  of  fortune,  and  to  make  up  by  the  vehe- 
mence of  our  admiration  for  centuries  of  contempt,  or  by  our 
scorn  for  centuries  of  blind  veneration. 

We  may  hope  that  such  a  comparison  of  the  views  of  dif. 


112  LECTURE    I. 

ferent  periods  will  save  us  from  one  of  the  besetting  faults 
of  minds  raised  a  little  above  the  mass,  but  not  arrived  at 
any  high  pitch  of  wisdom ;  I  mean  the  habit  either  of  sneer- 
ing at  or  extravagantly  exalting  the  age  in  which  we  our- 
selves live.  At  the  same  time  I  am  inclined  to  think  that 
although  both  are  faulty,  yet  the  temptation  is  far  greater  to 
undervalue  our  own  age  than  to  overvalue  it.  I  am  not 
speaking,  be  it  observed,  of  the  mass  of  mere  ordinary 
minds,  but  of  those  which  possess  some  portion  of  intelli- 
gence and  cultivation.  Our  personal  superiority  seems 
much  more  advanced  by  decrying  our  contemporaries  than 
by  decrying  our  fathers.  The  dead  are  not  our  real  ri- 
vajs,  nor  is  pride  very  much  gratified  by  asserting  a  su- 
periority over  those  who  cannot  deny  it.  But  if  we  run 
down  the  living,  that  is,  those  with  whom  our  whole  com- 
petition exists,  what  do  we  but  exalt  ourselves,  as  having 
at  any  rate  that  great  mark  of  superior  wisdom,  that  we 
discern  deficiency  where  others  find  nothing  but  matter  of 
admiration.  It  is  far  more  tempting  to  personal  vanity  to 
think  ourselves  the  only  wise  amongst  a  generation  of  fools, 
than  to  glory  in  belonging  to  a  wise  generation,  where  our 
personal  wisdom,  be  it  what  it  may,  cannot  at  least  have  the 
distinction  of  singularity. 

Thus  far  then  we  seem  to  have  proceeded  in  our  outline 
of  the  course  of  reading  to  be  pursued  by  the  historical  stu- 
dent. It  has  combined  at  present  two  points,  a  full  know- 
ledge of  the  particular  period  which  we  choose  to  study,  as 
derived  from  a  general  acquaintance  with  its  contemporary 
literature,  and  then  what  I  may  call  a  knowledge  of  its  bear- 
ings with  respect  to  other  and  later  periods,  and  not  least 
with  respect  to  our  own  times  ;  that  is  to  say,  how  succeed- 
ing ages  have  judged  of  it,  how  far  their  sympathies  have 
gone  along  with  its  own  in  admiring  what  it  admired  ;  and 
as  collected  from  this  judgment,  how  far  it  coloured  the  times 


LECTURE    I.  113 

which  followed  it ;  in  other  words,  what  part  it  has  played 
for  good  or  for  evil  in  the  great  drama  of  the  world's  his- 
tory ;  what  of  its  influence  has  survived  and  what  has  per- 
ished. And  he  who  has  so  studied  and  so  understood  one 
period,  deserves  the  praise  generally  of  understanding  his- 
tory. For  to  know  all  history  actually  is  impossible  ;  our 
object  should  be  to  possess  the  power  of  knowing  any  portion 
of  history  which  we  wish  to  learn,  at  a  less  cost  of  labour 
and  with  far  greater  certainty  of  success  than  belong  to  oth- 
er men.  For  by  our  careful  study  of  some  one  period,  we 
have  learnt  a  method  of  proceeding  with  all ;  so  that  if  we 
open  any  history,  its  facts  at  once  fall  into  their  proper 
places,  indicating  their  causes,  implying  their  consequences ; 
we  have  gained  also  a  measure  of  their  value,  teaching  us 
what  are  productive,  and  what  are  barren,  what  will  com- 
bine with  other  facts,  and  establish  and  illustrate  a  truth,  and 
what  in  our  present  state  of  knowledge  are  isolated,  of  no 
worth  in  themselves,  and  leading  to  nothing.  This  will  be 
still  more  apparent,  when  we  come  to  examine  more  care- 
fully our  student's  process  in  mastering  the  history  of  any 
one  period  ;  for  hitherto,  you  will  observe,  I  have  said  no- 
thing of  the  difficulties  or  questions  which  will  occur  to  him 
in  his  reading  ;  I  have  only  said  generally  what  he  should 
read. 

I  purpose  then  in  the  following  lectures  to  notice  some  of 
the  principal  difficulties  or  questions  which  the  historical 
student  will  encounter,  whether  the  period  which  he  has 
chosen  belong  to  the  times  of  imperfect  or  of  advanced  civili- 
zation :  for  the  questions  in  each  of  these  are  not  altogether 
the  same.  And  I  will  begin  with  the  difficulties  presented 
by  the  history  of  a  period  of  imperfect  civilization. 

10* 


NOTES 


LECTURE    I 


NOTE  1.— Page  96. 

Though  Lord  Clarendon  has  not  preserved  the  dialect  of  James 
the  First,  the  dramatic  form  of  several  passages  in  the  first  book 
of  his  History  gives  a  very  life-like  notion  of  the  King's  familiar 
conversation — the  coarse  mind  and  manners  distinctly  reflected  in 
the  coarseness  and  voluble  profanity  of  his  speech. 

NOTE  2.— Page  96. 

"  The  fate  of  Joan  in  literature  has  been  strange, — almost  as 
strange  as  her  fate  in  life.  The  ponderous  cantos  of  Chapelain  in 
her  praise  have  long  since  perished — all  but  a  few  lines  that  live 
embalmed  in  the  satires  of  Boileau.  But  besides  Schiller's  power- 
ful drama,  two  considerable  narrative  poems  yet  survive  with  Joan 
of  Arc  for  their  subject :  the  epic  of  Southey,  and  the  epic  of"  Vol- 
taire. The  one,  a  young  poet's  earnest  and  touching  tribute  to  he- 
roic worth — the  first  flight  of  the  muse  that  was  ere  long  to  soar 
over  India  and  Spain ;  the  other  full  of  ribaldry  and  blasphemous 
jests,  holding  out  the  Maid  of  Orleans  as  a  fitting  mark  for  slander 
and  derision.  But  from  whom  did  these  far  different  poems  pro- 
ceed ]  The  shaft  of  ridicule  came  from  a  French — the  token  of 
respect  from  an  English — hand  ! 

*  *  *  «  Who  that  has  ever  trodden  the  gorgeous  galleries  of  Ver- 
sailles, has  not  fondly  lingered  before  that  noble  work  of  art — be- 
fore that  touching  impersonation  of  the  Christian  heroine — the  head 
meekly  bended,  and  the  hands  devoutly  clasping  the  sword  in  sign 
of  the  cross,  but  firm  resolution  imprinted  on  that  close-pressed 


NOTES    TO    LECTURE    I.  115 

mouth,  and  beaming  from  that  lofty  brow !  Whose  thoughts,  as  he 
paused  to  gaze  and  gaze  again,  might  not  sometimes  wander  from 
old  times  to  the  present,  and  turn  to  the  sculptress — sprung  from 
the  same  royal  lineage  which  Joan  had  risen  in  arms  to  restore — 
so  highly  gifted  in  talent,  in  fortunes,  in  hopes  of  happiness,  yet 
doomed  to  an  end  so  grievous  and  untimely  *  Thus  the  statue  has 
grown  to  be  a  monument,  not  only  to  the  memory  of  the  Maid,  but 
to  her  own :  thus  future  generations  in  France — all  those  at  least 
who  know  how  to  prize  either  genius  or  goodness  in  woman — will 
love  to  blend  together  the  two  names,  the  female  artist  and  the 
female  warrior — MARY  OP  WURTEMBERG  and  JOAN  OF  ARC." 

Quar.  Review,  vol.  Ixix.,  p.  328,  March,  1842.. 

NOTE  3.— Page  104. 

"  Keep  your  view  of  men  and  things  extensive,  and  depend  upon 
it  that  a  mixed  knowledge  is  not  a  superficial  one  ; — as  far  as  it 
goes,  the  views  that  it  gives  are  true, — but  he  who  reads  deeply  in 
one  class  of  writers  only,  gets  views  which  are  almost  sure  to  be 
perverted,  and  which  are  not  only  narrow  but  false.  Adjust  your 
proposed  amount  of  reading  to  your  time  and  inclination — this  is 
perfectly  free  to  every  man,  but  whether  that  amount  be  large  or 
small,  let  it  be  varied  in  its  kind,  and  widely  varied.  If  I  have  a 
confident  opinion  on  any  one  point  connected  with  the  improvement 
of  the  human  mind,  it  is  on  this." 

Life  and  Correspondence,  Letter  ccv.,  Am.  edition,  357. 

"  It  is  a  very  hard  thing  to  read  at  once  passionately  and  critic- 
ally, by  no  means  to  be  cold,  captious,  sneering,  or  scoffing ;  to  ad- 
mire greatness  and  goodness  with  an  intense  love  and  veneration, 
yet  to  judge  all  things ;  to  be  the  slave  neither  of  names  nor  of 
parties,  and  to  sacrifice  even  the  most  beautiful  associations  for  the 
sake  of  truth.  I  would  say,  as  a  good  general  rule,  never  read  the 
works  of  any  ordinary  man,  except  on  scientific  matters,  or  when 
they  contain  simple  matters  of  fact.  Even  on  matters  of  fact,  silly 
and  ignorant  men,  however  honest  and  industrious  in  their  particu- 
lar subject,  require  to  be  read  with  constant  watchfulness  and  sus- 
picion ;  whereas  great  men  are  always  instructive,  even  amidst 
much  of  error  on  particular  points.  In  general,  however,  I  hold  it 


116  NOTES 

to  be  certain,  that  the  truth  is  to  be  found  in  the  great  men,  and  the 
error  in  the  little  ones." 

Life  and  Correspondence,  Letter  xcviii.,  Am.  edit.  p.  245. 

NOTE  4.— Page  108. 

This  case  of  the  traditional  misrepresentation  of  St.  Eligius  and 
of  the  times  he  lived  in  has  been  even  more  completely  and  con- 
clusively treated  by  Mr.  Maitland,  in  one  of  the  numbers  (vii.)  of 
his  work  entitled  "  The  Dark  Ages" — a  volume  in  which  the  gen- 
uine learning  and  the  dauntless  love  of  truth,  that  were  needed  to 
expose  old  habitual  falsehood,  are  happily  united  with  much  ap- 
propriate pleasantness  of  thought  and  with  true  and  well-directed 
satire.  He  remarks  that  the  sermon  which  was  mutilated  seems 
almost  as  if  it  had  been  written  in  anticipation  of  all  and  each  of 
Mosheim's  and  Maclaine's  charges,  and  he  quotes  the  observations 
of  the  late  Hugh  James  Rose,  by  whom  it  was  well  said : 

"  Here  we  find  not  only  an  individual  traduced,  but,  through  him, 
the  religious  character  of  a  whole  age  misrepresented,  and  this 
misrepresentation  now  generally  believed.  We  find  men  leaving  out 
what  a  writer  says,  and  then  reproaching  him  and  his  age  for  not 
saying  it.  We  find  Mosheim,  Maclaine,  Robertson,  Jortin,  White, 
mangling,  misusing,  and  (some  of  them)  traducing  a  writer  whose 
works  not  one  of  them,  except  Moshe'm,  (if  even  he,)  had  ever 
seen.  These  things  are  very  serious.  We  may  just  as  well,  or 
better,  not  read  at  all,  if  we  read  only  second-hand  writers,  or  do 
not  take  care  that  those  whom  we  do  trust  read  for  themselves, 
and  report  honestly.  We,  in  short,  trust  a  painter  who  paints  that 
black  which  is  white,  and  then  think  we  have  a  clear  idea  of  the 
object." 

This  is  a  case  that  cannot  be  too  strongly  condemned,  for  it  is  but 
one  of  many  examples  that  might,  with  little  pains,  be  collected,  of 
the  vicious  habit  of  unacknowledged  quotation  at  second  hand,  or  at 
some  even  more  remote  degree  from  the  original — a  vicious  habit, 
for  at  least  two  reasons :  that  it  is  a  frequent  cause  of  historical 
error,  gaining  authority  by  the  activity  of  falsehood ;  and  that  it  is 
the  ready  device  by  which  the  superficial  and  the  uncandid  can 
make  a  false  display. 


TO    LECTURE    I.  117 


NOTE  5.— Page  110. 

It  is  to  Mitford  and  his  history  that  Bishop  Thirlwall  alludes 
when,  in  a  note  in  his  History  of  Greece,  he  speaks  of  "  a  writer 
who  considers  it  as  the  great  business  of  history  to  place  royalty  in 
the  most  favourable  light ;"  and  in  another  note,  he  speaks  of  "  a 
work  which,  though  cast  in  an  historical  form,  is  intended  not  to 
give  historical  information,  but  to  state  opinions,  and  then  to  give 
such  facts  as  square  with  them." 

NOTE  6.— Page  110. 

In  Raleigh's  History  of  the  World,  says  Mr.  Hallam,  "the 
Greek  and  Roman  story  is  told  more  fully  and  exactly  than  by  any 
earlier  English  author,  and  with  a  plain  eloquence,  which  has  given 
this  book  a  classical  reputation  in  our  language,  though  from  its 
length,  and  the  want  of  that  critical  sifting  of  facts  which  we  now 
justly  demand,  it  is  not  greatly  read.  Raleigh  has  intermingled 
political  reflections,  and  illustrated  his  history  by  episodes  from 
modern  times,  which  perhaps  are  now  the  most  interesting  pas- 

Introduction  to  Literature  of  Europe,  vol.  iii.  p.  657. 


LECTURE   II, 


THE  first  step  which  I  ventured  to  recommend  in  the  study 
of  the  history  of  any  period,  was,  that  we  should  take  some 
one  contemporary  historian,  and  if  we  were  studying  the 
history  of  any  one  country  in  particular,  then  it  should  be 
also  an  historian  of  that  country,  and  that  we  should  so  gain 
our  first  introduction  both  to  the  events  and  to  the  general 
character  of  the  times.  I  am  now  to  consider  what  difficul- 
ties and  what  questions  will  be  likely  to  present  themselves 
in  reading  such  an  historian,  interfering,  if  not  answered, 
with  our  deriving  from  him  all  the  instruction  which  he  is 
capable  of  rendering.  Now  you  will  observe  that  I  am  pur- 
posely looking  out  for  the  difficulties  in  history,  but  I  am 
very  far  from  professing  to  be  able  to  solve  them.  Still  I 
think  that  what  I  am  doing  may  be  very  useful :  because  to 
direct  attention  to  what  is  to  be  done  is  the  best  means  of 
procuring  that  it  shall  be  done.  And  farther,  an  enterprising 
student  will  be  rather  encouraged  by  hearing  that  the  work 
is  not  all  done  to  his  hands;  he  will  be  glad  to  find  that 
the  motto  upon  history,  in  spite  of  all  that  has  been  lately 
accomplished,  is  still  "  Plus  ultra :"  the  actual  boundary 
reached  is  not  the  final  one ;  every  bold  and  able  adventurer 
in  this  wide  ocean  may  hope  to  obtain  the  honours  of  a  dis- 
coverer of  countries  hitherto  unknown. 

In  the  first  place  I  said  that  the  difficulties  and  questions 
which  occurred  in  reading  an  historian  of  a  period  of  imper- 
fect civilization,  were  not  in  all  respects  the  same  which  we 


120  LECTURE    II. 

should  meet  with  in  an  historian  of  a  more  advanced  age. 
This  leads  me  naturally  to  consider  what  constitutes  the  dif- 
ference between  these  two  classes  of  historians,  before  I  pro- 
ceed to  the  proper  subject  of  this  lecture,  the  questions 
namely  suggested  by  the  former  class,  or  those  of  a  period 
imperfectly  civilized. 

There  are  some  persons  whose  prejudices  are  so  violent 
against  their  own  age,  and  that  immediately  preceding  it, 
that  they  take  offence  at  their  claim  to  a  higher  civilization, 
and  will  by  no  means  allow  the  earlier  centuries  of  modern 
history  to  have  been  their  inferiors  in  this  respect.  For  my 
own  part,  I  should  find  it  very  difficult,  even  if  I  thought  it 
desirable,  to  relinquish  the  habitual  language  of  our  age ; 
which  calls  itself  civilized,  and  the  middle  ages  as  in  com- 
parison half  civilized,  not  in  the  spirit  of  controversy  or  of 
boasting,  but  as  a  simple  matter  of  fact.  However,  I  do  not 
wish  to  assume  any  conclusion  at  the  outset  which  may  be 
supposed  to  be  disputable ;  and  therefore,  I  will  not  if  I  can 
help  it  use  the  terms  more  or  less  civilized  as  applied  to  the 
earlier  or  later  periods  of  modern  history,  but  will  state  the 
difference  between  them  in  more  neutral  language.  For  that 
there  is  a  difference  will  scarcely  I  think  be  disputed  :  or 
that  this  difference  coincides  chronologically,  or  nearly  so, 
with  the  sixteenth  century  ;  so  that  the  historians  prior  to 
this  period  up  to  the  very  beginning  of  modern  history,  have, 
speaking  generally,  one  character ;  and  those  who  flourished 
subsequently  to  it  have  another.  And  farther,  I  cannot  think 
it  disputable,  that  the  great  historians  of  Greece  and  Rome 
resemble  for  the  most  part  the  historians  of  the  last  two  or 
three  centuries,  and  differ  from  those  of  the  early  or  middle 
ages. 

Now  without  using  the  invidious  words,  "  civilized"  or 
"  half  civilized,"  the  difference  may  be  stated  thus ;  that  the 
writers  of  the  early  and  middle  ages  belonged  to  a  period  in 


LECTURE    II.  121 

which  the  active  elements  were  fewer,  and  the  views  gene- 
rally prevalent  were  therefore  fewer  also.  Fewer  in  two 
ways,  first  inasmuch  as  the  classes  or  orders  of  society  which 
expressed  themselves  actively  in  word  or  deed  were  fewer ; 
and  then,  as  there  were  very  much  fewer  individual  varieties 
amongst  members  of  the  same  class.  Hence  therefore  the 

O 

history  of  the  early  ages  is  simple  ;  that  of  later  times  is 
complicated.  In  the  former  the  active  elements  were  kings, 
popes,  bishops,  lords,  and  knights,  with  exceptions  here  and 
there  of  remarkable  individuals  ;  but  generally  speaking 
the  other  elements  of  society  were  passive.  In  later 
times,  on  the  other  hand,  other  orders  of  men  have  been 
taking  their  part  actively  ;  and  the  number  of  these  ap- 
pears to  be  continually  increasing.  So  that  the  number 
of  views  of  human  life,  and  the  number  of  agencies  at  work 
upon  it,  are  multiplied  ;  the  difficulty  of  judging  between 
them  all  theoretically  is  very  great :  that  of  adjusting  their 
respective  claims  practically  is  almost  insuperable.  Again, 
in  later  times,  the  individual  differences  between  members  of 
the  same  class  or  order  have  been  far  greater;  for  while  the 
common  class  or  professional  influence  has  still  been  power- 
ful, yet  the  restraint  from  without  having  been  removed, 
which  forced  the  individual  to  abstain  from  disputing  that 
influence,  the  tendencies  of  men's  individual  minds  have 
worked  freely,  and  where  these  were  strong,  they  have  mod- 
ified the  class  or  professional  influence  variously,  and  have 
thus  produced  a  great  variety  of  theories  on  the  same  sub- 
ject. The  introduction  of  new  classes  or  bodies  of  men  into 
the  active  elements  of  society  may  be  exemplified  by  the  in- 
creased importance  in  later  times  of  the  science  of  political 
economy,  while  the  individual  variety  amongst  those  of  the 
same  order  is  shown  by  the  various  theories  which  have  been 
advanced  at  different  times  by  different  economical  writers. 
This  will  explain  what  I  mean,  when  I  divide  the  historians 

H 


122  LECTURE    II 

of  modern  history  Into  two  classes,  and  when  I  call  the  one 
class,  that  belonging  to  a  simpler  state  of  things ;  and  the 
other  that  belonging  to  a  state  more  complicated. 

We  are  now,  you  will  remember,  concerned  with  the  wri 
ters  of  the  first  class ;  and  as  a  specimen  of  these  in  theii 
simplest  form,  we  will  take  the  Church  History  of  the  Ven. 
erable  Bede.  This  work  has  been  lately  published,  1838,  in 
a  convenient  form,  1  vol.  8vo,  by  the  English  Historical  So- 
ciety ;  and  it  is  their  edition  to  which  my  references  have 
been  made.  I  need  scarcely  remind  you  of  the  date  and 
circumstances  of  Bede's  life.  Born  in  674,  only  fifty  years 
after  the  flight  of  Mahomet  from  Mecca,  he  died  at  the  age 
of  sixty-one,  in  735,  two  or  three  years  after  that  great  vic- 
tory of  Charles  Martel  over  the  Saracens,  which  delivered 
France  and  Europe  from  Mahometan  conquest.  At  seven 
years  old  he  was  placed  under  the  care  of  the  abbot  of 
Wearmouth,  and  from  that  monastery  he  removed  to  the 
neighbouring  one  of  Jarrow,  and  there  passed  the  remainder 
of  his  life.  He  was  ordained  deacon  in  his  nineteenth  year, 
and  priest  in  his  thirtieth,  and  beyond  these  two  events  we 
know  nothing  of  his  external  life  except  his  writings.  These 
are  various,  and  he  himself,  at  the  conclusion  of  his  Eccle- 
siastical History,  has  left  us  a  list  of  them : — they  consist  of 
commentaries  on  almost  all  the  books  of  Scripture,  of  trea- 
tises on  some  scriptural  subjects,  of  religious  biographies,  of 
a  book  of  hymns ;  and  of  some  of  a  different  character,  on 
general  history  and  chronology,  a  book  de  orthographia,  and 
another  de  metrica  arte.  His  Ecclesiastical  History,  in  five 
books,  embraces  the  period  from  Augustine's  arrival  in  597, 
down  to  the  year  731,  only  four  years  before  his  own  death; 
so  that  for  a  considerable  portion  of  the  time  to  which  it  re- 
lates his  work  is  a  contemporary  history. 

In  Bede  we  shall  find  no  political  questions  of  any  kind  to 
create  any  difficulty,  nor  are  there  those  varied  details  of 


LECTURE    II.  123 

war  and  peace  which,  before  they  can  be  vividly  compre- 
hended,  require  a  certain  degree  of  miscellaneous  knowledge. 
I  may  notice  then  in  him  one  or  two  things  which  belong 
more  or  less  to  all  history.  First,  his  language.  We  derive, 
or  ought  to  derive  from  our  philological  studies,  a  great  ad- 
vantage in  this  respect ;  we  ought  to  have  acquired  in  some 
degree  the  habit  of  regarding  language  critically,  and  of  in- 
terpreting it  correctly.  This  is  not  a  trifling  matter ;  for 
as  an  immense  majority  of  histories  must  be  written  in  a 
foreign  language,  it  is  very  possible  for  a  careless  reader, 
who  has  never  been  trained  as  we  have  been  from  our  earliest 
years  in  grammatical  analysis,  to  make  important  mistakes 
as  to  the  meaning  of  his  author;  for  translation,  to  be  thor- 
oughly good,  must  be  a  matter  of  habit,  and  must  be  grounded 
on  such  a  minutely  accurate  process  as  we  are  early  trained 
to  in  our  study  of  Greek  and  Latin  writers.  It  must  be 
grounded  on  such  a  process,  the  great  value  of  which  is,  that 
it  hinders  us  from  neglecting  little  words,  conjunctions  espe- 
cially, on  which  so  large  a  portion  of  the  meaning  of  contin- 
uous writing  depends,  and  which  a  careless  reader  not  so 
trained  is  apt  to  pass  over.  But  there  is  a  higher  step  in 
translation  which  is  by  no  means  a  mere  matter  of  ornament, 
and  which  I  believe  is  not  always  attended  to  as  it  deserves 
even  amongst  ourselves.  I  mean  translation  as  distinguished 
from  construing ;  a  process  which  retains  all  the  accuracy 
of  the  earlier  habit;  its  searching  view  into  every  corner,  so 
to  speak,  of  the  passage  to  be  translated  ;  its  appreciation  of 
every  little  word,  of  every  shade  of  distinction  in  mood  or 
tense ;  but  from  this  accuracy  makes  its  way  to  another  still 
more  perfect — the  exact  expression  of  the  rnind  of  the  original. 
so  that  the  feelings  excited  by  the  translation,  the  images 
conveyed  by  the  words,  the  force  of  their  arrangement,  their 
.tone,  whether  serious  or  half  playful,  should  be  the  exact  re- 
presentation of  the  original.  And  in  this  greater  accuracy 


124  LECTURE    II. 

construing  must  always  be  deficient,  because  the  grammati. 
cal  order  of  one  language  is  not  the  same  as  that  of  another, 
and  to  keep  the  real  order,  which  is  of  great  importance  to  the 
fidelity  of  the  translation,  the  grammatical  order  must  often  be 
sacrificed.  I  have  ventured  to  say  thus  much,  because  I  have 
continually  had  occasion  to  feel  the  difficulty  of  good  transla- 
tion, and  because  in  this  respect  our  admirable  classical  system 
is  apt,  I  think,  to  forego  one  of  its  great  advantages,  that  in  the 
habit  of  viva  voce  translation,  as  opposed  to  construing,  we  have 
an  exercise  at  once  in  the  two  great  subjects  of  grammar  and 
rhetoric — an  exercise  in  extemporaneous  composition  in  our 
own  language  to  which  none  other  is  comparable,  no  less  than 
an  exercise  in  the  language  from  which  we  are  translating.  (1) 
To  return,  however,  to  the  language  of  Bede.  We  in  one 
way  may  have  a  source  of  error  peculiarly  our  own  ;  that  is, 
our  almost  exclusive  familiarity  with  classical  Latin  is  some- 
times apt  to  mislead  us,  when  we  transfer  its  rules,  and  its 
senses  of  words,  without  hesitation,  to  the  Latin  of  what  are 
called  the  low  or  middle  ages.  As  a  single  and  very  familiar 
instance  of  the  difference  between  classical  Latin  and  low 
Latin,  I  may  notice  the  perpetual  usage  of  the  conjunction 
"  quia"  in  the  latter  in  the  sense  of  the  Greek  oVi.  "  Nosti 
quia  ad  tui  oris  imperium  semper  vivere  studui,"  "  Thou 
knowest  that  I  have  ever  been  careful  to  live  in  obedience  to 
thy  words ;"  iv.  29.  This  occurs  in  the  Latin  of  unclassical 
writers  continually.  I  do  not  know  what  is  the  earliest  in- 
stance of  it,  but  it  is  frequent  in  the  Latin  version  of  the 
Scriptures  which  was  used  by  the  western  churches  before 
Jerome's  time,  and  in  the  old  Latin  translation  of  Irenseus. 
Facciolati  gives  no  instance  of  it  in  any  classical  writer,  ex- 
cept we  choose  to  bestow  that  title  on  Palladius,  one  of  the 
agricultural  writers,  whose  date  is  not  known,  but  who  cer- 
tainly did  not  flourish  earlier  than  the  third  century,  or  the 
Very  end  of  the  second,  inasmuch  as  he  quotes  Apuleius,  who 


LECTURE    II.  125 

lived  under  M.  Aurelius  Antoninus.  Besides  this,  it  is  always 
worth  while  in  reading  the  Latin  of  the  lower  ages,  to  observe 
the  gradual  introduction  of  words  of  Barbarian  origin,  such  as 
scafani,  scaccarium,  marchio,  batallum,  and  innumerable  others 
of  which  the  pages  of  Ducange  are  full.  But  of  these,  very 
few,  perhaps  no  certain  instance,  is  to  be  found  in  Bede. 

Another  question  comes  before  us  in  the  history  of  Bede, 
which  also  is  common  to  all  history,  although  in  him  and  in 
the  other  writers  of  the  middle  ages  it  often  takes  a  peculiar 
form.  I  mean  the  great  question  of  the  trustworthiness  of 
historians ;  on  what  grounds  and  to  what  degree  we  may 
venture  to  yield  our  belief  to  what  we  read  in  them.  In 
Bede  and  in  many  others  the  question  takes  this  form,  What 
credit  is  to  be  attached  to  the  frequent  stories  of  miracles  or 
of  wonders  which  occur  in  their  narratives  ?  And  it  is  this 
peculiar  form  of  it  which  I  would  wish  to  notice  now.  The 
question  is  not  an  easy  one,  and  I  must  here  remind  you  of 
what  I  said  at  the  beginning  of  this  lecture,  that  while  point 
ing  out  the  difficulties  of  history,  I  was  very  far  from  pro 
fessing  to  be  able  always  to  solve  them. 

You  will,  I  think,  allow  that  the  difficulty  here  relates 
much  more  to  miracles  than  to  mere  wonders.  By  the  term 
miracle  we  imply  I  think  two  things  which  do  not  exist  in 
mere  wonders ;  two  things,  or  perhaps  more  properly  one, 
that  God  is  not  only  the  author  of  the  wonderful  work,  but 
that  it  is  wrought  for  us  to  observe  and  be  influenced  by  it : 
whereas  a  wonder  is  no  doubt  God's  work  also,  but  it  is  not 
wrought  so  far  as  we  can  discern  for  our  sakes;  so  far  as  we 
are  concerned  it  is  a  work  without  an  object.  Being  there- 
fore wholly  ignorant  of  the  nature  and  object  of  wonders,  and 
being  ignorant  of  a  great  many  natural  laws,  by  which  they 
may  be  produced,  the  question  of  their  credibility  resolves 
itself  into  little  more  than  a  mere  question  as  to  the  credibility 
of  the  witnesses ;  there  is  little  room  for  considerations  of 

11* 


1 26  LECTURE    II. 

internal  evidence  as  to  the  time  and  circumstances  when  the 
wonder  is  said  to  have  happened.  The  internal  evidence 
only  comes  in  with  respect  to  our  knowledge  of  the  law, 
which  the  wonder  is  supposed  to  violate  :  in  proportion  to  our 
observations  of  its  comprehensiveness  and  its  unbroken  ob- 
servance, would  be  our  unwillingness  to  believe  that  it  had 
been  ever  departed  from.  And  thus  I  suppose  that  any  de- 
viation from  the  observed  laws  with  respect  to  the  heavenly 
bodies,  as,  for  instance,  to  the  time  of  the  sun's  rising  or  set- 
ting, if  we  looked  upon  it  as  a  mere  wonder  and  not  as  a 
miracle,  we  should  scarcely  be  persuaded  by  any  weight 
of  evidence  to  believe :  or  to  speak  more  correctly,  if  the 
weight  of  evidence  were  overwhelmingly  great,  we  should  be 
obliged  to  regard  the  phenomenon  as  a  miracle,  and  not  as  a 
wonder;  as  a  sign  given  by  God  for  our  instruction.  But  in 
a  great  number  of  cases,  we  may  admit  the  existence  of  a 
wonder  without  seeing  any  reason  to  conclude  that  it  is  a 
miracle.  A  man  may  appear  ridiculous  if  he  expresses  his 
belief  in  any  particular  story  of  this  sort  to  those  who  know 
nothing  of  it  but  its  strangeness.  And  there  is  no  doubt  that- 
human  folly  and  human  fraud  are  mixed  up  largely  with 
most  accounts  of  wonders,  and  render  it  our  duty  to  receive 
them  not  with  caution  merely,  but  with  unwillingness  and 
suspicion.  Yet  to  say  that  all  recorded  wonders  are  false, 
from  those  recorded  by  Herodotus  down  to  the  latest  reports 
of  animal  magnetism,  would  be  a  boldness  of  assertion  wholly 
unjustifiable  and  extravagant.  The  accounts  of  wonder« 
then,  from  Livy's  prodigies  downwards,  I  should  receive  ac 
cording  to  Herodotus's  expression  when  speaking  of  one  of 
them,  OVTS  d'ff'itfTswv,  OUTS  flfitfrsuwv  <n  XiSjv  :  sometimes  consid- 
ering  of  what  fact  they  were  an  exaggerated  or  corrupted  repre- 
sentation,  at  other  times  trying  to  remember  whether  any  and 
how  many  other  notices  occur  of  the  same  thing,  and  whethei 
they  are  of  force  enough  to  lead  us  to  search  for  some  law 


LECTURE    II.  127 

hitherto  undiscovered,  to  which  they  may  all  be  referred,  and 
become  hereafter  the  foundation  of  a  new  science.  (2) 

But  when  a  wonderful  thing  is  represented  as  a  miracle, 
the  question  becomes  far  graver  and  far  more  complicated. 
Moral  and  religious  considerations  then  come  in  unavoidably, 
and  involve  some  of  the  deepest  questions  of  theology.  What 
is  reported  as  a  miracle  may  be  either  the  answer  to  the  be- 
lieving prayer  of  a  Christian,  or  it  may  be  the  working  of  one 
of  the  gifts  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  or  it  may  be  a  special  sign 
sent  from  God  for  a  special  mercy  or  judgment  in  the  par- 
ticular ease,  and  for  the  instruction  and  warning  of  others. 
And  whichever  of  these  kinds  it  may  be,  the  question  fol- 
lows, why  then  are  miracles  not  performed  in  every  age  and 
in  every  Christian  country  ?  And  if  they  are  not,  are  the 
ages  and  countries  thus  excepted,  to  be  considered  as  having 
fallen  away  from  the  faith,  and  to  have  forfeited  what  is 
properly  a  perpetual  privilege  of  Christianity,  to  have  God 
visibly  and  sensibly  near  to  us  ?  Say  that  we  acquiesce  in 
this  conclusion,  yet  proceeding  to  regard  the  question  in  this 
point  of  view,  is  it  embarrassed  with  no  difficulties  ?  Is  it 
possible  to  deny  that  the  individuals,  the  churches,  and  the 
times,  which  appear  to  have  been  left  without  miracles,  have 
displayed  other  and  even  more  unquestionable  signs  of  God's 
presence  amongst  them ;  signs  which  have  not  always  existed 
with  peculiar  brightness  where  miracles  are  alleged  to  have 
most  abounded  ?  Or  again,  Can  it  be  denied  that  the  times 
and  the  writers  where  these  miraculous  accounts  are  to  be 
found,  were  generally,  as  compared  with  those  where  they 
are  wanting,  apt  to  take  little  pains  in  their  examination  of 
truth,  of  such  truth,  I  mean,  as  their  previous  state  of  mind 
did  not  dispose  them  to  question  ?  We  see  this  from  their 
accounts  of  points  of  natural  history ;  how  few  of  these  can 
be  depended  upon,  and  what  extravagant  and  palpable  fables 
were  transmitted  from  generation  to  generation !  It  is  enough 


128  LECTURE    II. 

to  notice  the  famous  story  of  the  barnacle-tree,  which  dropped 
its  fruit  into  the  water,  and  the  fruit  cracked,  and  out  swam 
a  gosling,  Bede's  accounts  of  natural  objects  are  few,  but  it 
so  happens  that  one  of  these  relates  to  a  place  with  which  I 
have  been  acquainted  all  my  life,  and  its  incorrectness  is  re- 
markable. He  says  that  in  the  Solent  sea,  which  separates 
the  Isle  of  Wight  from  Hampshire,  "two  tides  of  the  ocean, 
breaking  forth  round  Britain  from  the  boundless  Northern 
ocean,  meet  every  day  in  mutual  conflict  with  each  other 
beyond  the  mouth  of  the  river  of  Homelea,  (Hamble,)  and 
after  their  conflict  is  over  they  sweep  back  to  the  ocean,  and 
return  to  the  place  from  whence  they  came."*  Who  could 
recognise  in  this  description  the  sort  of  race  which  runs  at 
certain  times  of  the  tide,  and  in  rough  weathor,  over  the 
shoal  called  the  Brambles,  or  the  slight  agitation  sometimes 
produced,  not  by  the  conflicting  tides  of  the  Solent  sea  itself, 
but  by  the  ebb  of  the  Southampton  or  Hamble  river  meeting 
at  an  angle  with  the  tide  of  the  Solent  ?  We  have  to  weigh 
then  this  fact  in  the  character  of  Bede  and  other  such  histo- 
rians, and  this,  added  to  the  religious  difficulty  noticed  above, 
may  incline  us  rather  to  take  the  opposite  conclusion,  and 
limiting  miracles  to  the  earliest  times  of  Christianity,  refuse 
our  belief  to  all  those  which  are  reported  by  the  historians 
of  subsequent  centuries. 

Yet,  again,  this  conclusion  has  its  difficulties.  We  may 
not  like  to  refuse  assent  to  so  many  statements  of  so  many 
writers,  of  men,  so  far  as  we  know,  who  believe  that  they 
were  speaking  the  truth.  And  we  may  be  taxed  with  incon- 
sistency in  stopping  our  scepticism  arbitrarily  as  it  may  seem 
when  we  arrive  at  the  first  century,  and  according  to  the 
miracles  of  the  Gospels  that  belief  which  we  refuse  to  those 
of  ecclesiastical  history.  This  last  charge,  however,  we  ma; 

*  Histor.  Ecclesiast.  iv.  16. 


LECTURE    II.  129 

satisfactorily  repel.  The  miracles  of  the  Gospel  and  those 
of  later  history  do  not  stand  on  the  same  ground.  I  do  not 
think  that  they  stand  on  the  same  ground  of  external  evi- 
dence ;  I  cannot  think  that  the  unbelieving  spirit  of  the  Roman 
world  in  the  first  century  was  equally  favorable  to  the  origi- 
nation and  admission  of  stories  of  miracles,  with  the  credu- 
lous tendencies  of  the  middle  ages.  But  the  difference  goes- 
far  deeper  than  this  to  all  those  who  can  appreciate  the  other 
evidences  of  Christianity,  and  who  therefore  feel  that  in  the 
one  case  what  we  call  miracles  were  but  the  natural  accom- 
paniments, if  I  may  so  speak,  of  the  Christian  revelation ; 
accompaniments,  the  absence  of  which  would  have  been  far 
more  wonderful  than  their  presence.  This,  as  I  may  almost 
call  it,  this  a  priori  probability  in  favour  of  the  miracles  of 
the  Gospel  cannot  be  said  to  exist  in  favour  of  those  of  later 
history. 

Disembarrassed  then  of  this  painful  parallel,  and  able  to 
judge  freely  of  the  miraculous  stories  of  Bede  and  other  his- 
torians, without  feeling  our  whole  Christian  faith  to  rest  on 
the  decision,  it  will  not  however  follow,  as  some  appear  to 
think,  that  we  shall  riot  as  it  were  in  a  full  license  of  unbe- 
lief, or  that  a  reasonable  mind  will  exercise  no  belief  in  re- 
ligious matters  except  such  as  it  dares  not  withhold.  Some 
appear  to  be  unable  to  conceive  of  belief  or  unbelief  except 
as  having  some  ulterior  object ;  "  we  believe  this,  because 
we  love  it ;  we  disbelieve  it,  because  we  wish  it  to  be  dis- 
proved." There  i«,  however,  in  minds  more  healthfully 
constituted,  a  belief  and  a  disbelief  grounded  solely  upon  the 
evidence  of  the  case,  arising  neither  out  of  partiality  nor  out 
of  prejudice  against  the  supposed  conclusions  which  may  re- 
suit  from  its  truth  or  falsehood.  And  in  such  a  spirit  the 
historical  student  will  consider  the  cases  of  Bede's  and  other 
historians'  miracles.  He  will,  I  think,  as  a  general  rule  dis- 
believe them  ;  for  the  immense  multitude  which  he  finds  re. 


130  LECTURE    II. 

corded,  and  which  I  suppose  no  credulity  could  believe  in, 
shows  sufficiently  that  on  this  point  there  was  a  total  want 
of  judgment  and  a  blindness  of  belief  generally  existing 
which  makes  the  testimony  wholly  insufficient;  and  while  the 
external  evidence  in  favour  of  these  alleged  miracles  is  so 
unsatisfactory,  there  are,  for  the  most  part,  strong  internal 
improbabilities  against  them.  But  with  regard  to  some  mir- 
acles, he  will  see  that  there  is  no  strong  a  priori  improbability 
in  their  occurrence,  but  rather  the  contrary;  as, for  instance, 
where  the  first  missionaries  of  the  Gospel  in  a  barbarous 
country  are  said  to  have  been  assisted  by  a  manifestation  of 
the  spirit  of  power,  and  if  the  evidence  appears  to  warrant 
his  belief,  he  will  readily  and  gladly  yield  it.  And  in  doing 
so  he  will  have  the  countenance  of  a  great  man,*  who  in  his 
fragment  of  English  history  has  not  hesitated  to  express  the 
same  sentiments.  (3)  Nor  will  he  be  unwilling,  but  most 
thankful,  to  find  sufficient  grounds  for  believing,  that  not 
only  at  the  beginning  of  the  Gospel,  but  in  ages  long  after- 
wards, believing  prayer  has  received  extraordinary  answers, 
that  it  has  been  heard  even  in  more  than  it  might  have  dared 
to  ask  for.  Yet  again,  if  the  gift  of  faith — the  gift  as  distin- 
guished from  the  grace — of  the  faith  which  removes  moun- 
tains, has  been  given  to  any  in  later  times  in  remarkable 
measure,  the  mighty  works  which  such  faith  may  have 
wrought  cannot  be  incredible  in  themselves  to  those  who  re- 
member our  Lord's  promise ;  and  if  it  appears  from  satisfac- 
tory evidence  that  they  were  wrought  actually,  we  shall  be- 
lieve them,  and  believe  with  joy.  Only  as  it  is  in  most  cases 
impossible  to  admit  the  trustworthiness  of  the  evidence,  our 
minds  must  remain  at  the  most  in  a  state  of  suspense,  and  I 
do  not  know  why  it  is  necessary  to  come  to  any  positive  de- 
cision. For  if  we  think  that  supposing  the  miracle  to  be 

«  Burke. 


LECTURE   II.  131 

true,  it  gives  the  seal  of  God's  approbation  to  all  the  belief 
of  him  who  performed  it,  this  is  manifestly  a  most  hasty  and 
untenable  inference.  The  gift  of  faith  does  not  imply  the 
gift  of  wisdom,  nor  is  every  believing  Christian,  whose  prayer 
<jod  may  hear  in  an  extraordinary  manner,  endued  also  with 
an  exemption  from  error.  Men's  gifts  are  infinitely  different, 
distinct  from  each  other,  as  from  God's  gifts  of  inward  grace; 
unequal  in  value  outwardly,  the  highest,  it  may  be,  of  less 
value  spiritually  to  its  possessor  than  the  humblest  grace  of 
him  who  has  no  remarkable  gift  at  all.  Yet  the  grace  can- 
not  do  the  work  of  the  gift,  nor  the  higher  gift  the  work  of 
the  meaner ;  nor  may  he  who  can  work  miracles  claim  there- 
fore the  gift  of  understanding  the  Scripture,  and  interpreting 
it  with  infallible  truth.  Cyprian  said  of  the  martyrs,  when 
he  thought  that  they  were  impairing  the  discipline  of  the 
church  by  granting  tickets  of  communion  over  hastily  to  the 
Lapsi,  or  those  who  had  fallen  away  in  the  persecutions, 
"  The  martyrs  do  not  make  the  Gospel,  for  it  is  through  the 
Gospel  that  they  acquire  the  glory  of  martyrdom."*  And  so 
we  might  say  of  certain  miracles,  if  there  were  any  such, 
wrought  by  persons  who  had  in  many  points  grievously  cor- 
rupted the  Christian  faith,  "  Miracles  must  not  be  allowed  to 
overrule  the  Gospel ;  for  it  is  only  through  our  belief  in  the 
Gospel  that  we  accord  our  belief  to  them."  (4) 

I  do  not  make  any  apology  for  the  length  of  this  discussion, 
because  the  subject  was  one  which  lay  directly  in  our  way, 
and  could  not  be  passed  over  hastily  ;  and  I  arn  never  averse 
to  showing  how  closely  connected  are  those  studies  which 
we  will  attempt  to  divide  by  the  names  religious  and  secular, 
injuring  both  by  trying  to  separate  them.  Let  us  now  pro- 
ceed with  our  review  of  the  difficulties  of  history,  and  still 
confining  ourselves  to  what  I  have  called  the  simpler  period, 

*  Cyprian  Epist.  xxvii.    "  Minime  consideravit  quod  non  martyres  Evan- 
geliam  faciant;  sed  per  Evangelium  martyres  flank" 


132  LECTURE    II. 

we  will  pass  on  however  from  the  eighth  to  chfc  t 
century,  and  briefly  notice  some  of  the  questuus  which  sug- 
gest themselves  when  we  read  Matthew  Paris,  or,  still  more, 
any  of  the  French,  German,  or  Italian  historians  of  the  same 
period. 

The  thirteenth  century  contains  in  it  at  its  beginning  the 
most  splendid  period  of  the  papacy,  the  time  of  Innocent  the 
Third  ;  its  end  coincides  with  that  great  struggle  between 
Boniface  the  Eighth  and  Philip  the  Fair,  which  marks  the 
first  stage  of  its  decline.  It  contains' the  reign  of  Frederick 
the  Second,  and  his  long  contests  with  the  popes  in  Italy  j 
the  foundation  of  the  orders  of  friars,  Dominican  and  Fran- 
ciscan ;  the  last  period  of  the  crusades,  and  the  age  of  the 
greatest  glory  of  the  schoolmen.  Thus  full  of  matters  of  interest 
as  it  is,  it  will  yet  be  found  that  all  its  interest  is  more  or  less 
connected  with  two  great  questions  concerning  the  church  ; 
namely,  the  power  of  the  priesthood  in  matters  of  government 
and  in  matters  of  faith  ;  the  merits  of  the  contest  between  the 
papacy  and  the  kings  of  Europe  ;  the  nature  and  character 
of  that  influence  over  men's  minds  which  affected  the  whole 
philosophy  of  the  period,  the  whole  intellectual  condition  of 
the  Christian  world. 

It  would  be  out  of  place  here  altogether  to  enter  at  large 
into  either  of  these  questions.  But  it  is  closely  connected 
with  my  subject,  to  notice  one  or  two  points  as  to  the  method 
of  studying  them.  I  observed  in  my  first  lecture,  that  after 
studying  the  history  of  any  period  in  its  own  contemporary 
writers,  it  was  desirable  also  to  study  the  view  of  it  enter- 
tained by  a  later  period,  as  whether  more  or  less  true,  it  was 
sure  to  be  different,  and  would  probably  afford  some  truth  in 
which  the  contemporary  view  was  deficient.  This  holds 
good  with  the  thirteenth  century  as  with  other  periods  ;  it  is 
quite  important  that  we  should  see  it  as  it  appears  in  the  eyes 
of  later  times,  no  less  than  as  it  appears  in  its  own.  But  the 


LECTURE    II.  133 

questions  of  the  thirteenth  century,  if  I  am  right  in  saying 
that  they  are  connected  with  the  church,  require  especially 
that  our  view  should  be  cast  backwards  as  well  as  forwards  ; 
we  should  regard  them  not  only  as  they  appear  to  later  times, 
but  to  a  time  far  earlier ;  the  merits  or  demerits  of  the  papacy 
must  be  tried  with  reference  to  the  original  system  of  Chris- 
tianity, not  as  exhibited  only  in  what  is  called  the  early 
church,  but  much  more  as  exhibited  in  Scripture.  Is  the 
church  system  of  Innocent  the  Third,  either  in  faith  or  in 
government,  the  system  of  the  New  Testament  ?  That  the 
two  differ  widely  is  certain  ;  but  is  one  the  developement  of 
the  other  ?  Is  the  spirit  of  both  the  same,  with  no  other 
alteration  than  one  merely  external,  such  as  must  be  found 
in  passing  from  the  infancy  of  the  church  to  its  maturity  ? 
Or  is  the  spirit  altogether  different,  so  that  the  later  system 
is  not  the  developement  of  the  earlier,  but  its  perversion  ? 
And  then  follows  the  inquiry,  intensely  interesting  to  those 
who  are  able  to  pursue  it,  what  is  the  history  of  this  perver- 
sion, and  how  far  is  it  unlike  merely,  without  being  corrupted 
from,  the  Gospel ;  for  the  perversion  may  not  extend  through 
every  part  of  it ;  there  may  be  in  it  differences  from  the 
original  system  which  are  merely  external ;  there  may  be  in 
it,  even  where  superficially  considered  it  is  at  variance  with 
the  scriptural  system,  there  may  be  in  it  developement  merely 
in  some  instances  while  there  is  perversion  in  others.  Only 
it  is  essential  that  we  do  not  look  at  the  first  century  through 
the  medium  of  the  thirteenth,  nor  through  the  medium  of  any 
earlier  century  :  the  judge's  words  must  not  be  taken  accord- 
ing to  the  advocate's  sense  of  them  :  the  first  century  is  to 
determine  our  judgment  of  the  second,  and  of  all  subsequent 
centuries ;  it  will  not  do  to  assume  that  the  judgment  must 
be  interpreted  by  the  very  practices  and  opinions  the  merits 
of  which  it  has  to  try. 

We  may,  however,  choose  rather  to  look  at  the  outside  of 

12 


134  LECTURE    II. 

the  middle  ages  than  penetrate  to  the  deeper  principles  which 
are  involved  in  their  contests  and  their  condition.  We  may 
study  the  chroniclers  rather,  who  paint  the  visible  face  of 
things  with  exceeding  liveliness,  however  little  they  may  be 
able  or  may  choose  to  descend  to  what  lies  within.  And  as 
a  specimen  of  these  we  may  take  one  of  the  latest  of  their 
number,  the  celebrated  Philip  de  Comines. 

Philip  de  Comines  came  from  the  small  town  of  that  name 
near  Lisle  in  Flanders,  and  was  thus  born  a  subject  of  the 
dukes  of  Burgundy,  in  the  reign  of  Duke  Philip  the  Good,  in 
the  year  1445.  He  served  Duke  Philip,  and  his  son  Duke 
Charles  the  Bold,  but  left  the  latter  and  went  over  to  the 
service  of  Louis  the  Eleventh  in  1472,  by  whom  he  was  em- 
ployed in  his  most  important  and  confidential  affairs.  He 
was  present  with  Louis  during  the  last  scenes  of  his  life  at 
Plessis  les  Tours ;  he  lived  through  the  reign  of  Charles  the 
Eighth  with  great  varieties  of  fortune,  being  at  one  time  shut 
up  in  prison,  and  at  another  employed  in  honourable  and  im- 
portant duties,  and  he  died  in  the  reign  of  Louis  the  Twelfth. 
His  Memoirs  embrace  a  period  of  thirty-four  years,  from 
1464,  when  he  first  entered  into  the  service  of  Duke  Charles 
of  Burgundy,  then  Count  of  Charolois,  to  the  death  of  King 
Charles  the  Eighth  in  1498.  Thus  they  are  not  only  a  con- 
temporary history,  but  relate  mostly  to  transactions  which 
the  writer  actually  witnessed,  or  in  which  he  was  more  or 
less  concerned. 

Philip  de  Comines  has  been  called  the  father  of  modern 
history,  a  title  which  would  class  him  with  the  writers  of  the 
second,  or  what  I  have  called  the  more  complicated  period. 
But  it  seems  to  me  that  he  belongs  entirely  to  the  simpler 
period;  and  this  is  most  apparent  when  we  compare  him 
with  Machiavelli,  who,  although  almost  his  contemporary, 
yet  does  in  his  whole  style,  and  in  the  tone  of  his  mind, 
really  belong  to  the  later  period.  Thus  in  Philip  de  Comines 


LECTURE    II.  135 

we  meet  with  scarcely  any  thing  of  the  great  political  ques- 
tions which  arose  in  the  next  century ;  his  Memoirs  paint 
the  wars  and  intrigues  carried  on  by  one  prince  against 
another  for  the  mere  purpose  of  enlarging  his  dominions; 
and,  except  in  the  revolts  of  Liege  against  the  Duke  of  Bur- 
gundy, we  see  no  symptoms  of  any  thing  like  a  war  of  opin- 
ion. We  get  then  only  a  view  of  the  external  appearance 
of  things  ;  and  meet  with  no  other  difficulties  than  such  as 

arise  from  a  want  of  sufficient  circumstantial  knowledge  to 

o 

enable  us  to  realize  his  pictures  fully. 

And  here  I  cannot  but  congratulate  ourselves  in  this  place 
on  those  habits  of  careful  sifting  and  analysis  which  we 
either  have,  or  ought  to  have  gained,  from  our  classical 
studies.  Take  any  large  work  of  a  classical  historian,  and 
with  what  niceness  of  attention  have  we  been  accustomed  to 
read  it.  How  many  books  have  we  consulted  in  illustration 
of  its  grammatical  difficulties,  how  have  we  studied  our  maps 
to  become  familiar  with  its  geography ;  what  various  aids 
have  we  employed  to  throw  light  on  its  historical  allusions, 
on  every  office  or  institution  casually  named ;  on  all  points 
of  military  detail,  the  divisions  of  the  army,  the  form  of  the 
camp,  the  nature  of  the  weapons  and  engines  used  in  battles 
or  in  sieges ;  or  on  all  matters  of  private  life,  points  of  law, 
of  domestic  economy,  of  general  usages  and  manners.  In 
this  way  we  penetrate  an  ancient  history  by  a  thousand  pas- 
sages, we  explore  every  thing  contained  in  it ;  if  some  points 
remain  obscure,  they  stand  apart  from  the  rest  for  that  very 
reason  distinctly  remembered,  the  very  page  in  which  they 
occur  is  familiar  to  us.  We  are  already  trained,  therefore, 
in  the  process  of  studying  history  thoroughly ;  and  we  have 
only  to  repeat  for  Philip  de  Comines,  or  any  other  writer  on 
whom  we  may  have  fixed  our  choice,  the  very  same  method 
which  we  have  been  accustomed  to  employ  with  Herodotun 
and  Thucydidegv. 


136  LECTURE    II. 

At  the  same  time  it  is  fair  to  add,  that  this  process  with  a 
modern  historian  is  accidentally  much  more  difficult.  For 
the  ancient  writers  we  have  our  helps  ready  at  hand,  well- 
known,  cheap,  and  accessible.  The  school-boy  has  his 
Ainsworth  or  his  Donnegan ;  he  has  his  small  atlas  of 
ancient  maps,  his  compendium  of  Greek  or  Roman  anti- 
quities, his  abridgments  of  Greek  and  Roman  history.  The 
more  advanced  student  has  his  Facciolati,  his  Schneider, 
or  his  Passow;  his  more  elaborate  atlas,  his  fuller  his- 
tories,  his  vast  collections  of  Greek  and  Roman  antiquities, 
to  which  all  the  learning  of  Europe  has  contributed  its  aid. 
How  different  is  the  case  with  the  history  of  the  middlo 
ages !  If  there  are  any  cheap  or  compendious  helps  for  the 
study  of  them,  I  must  profess  my  ignorance  of  them.  There 
may  be  many,  known  on  the  Continent  if  not  in  England,  but 
I  am  unable  to  mention  them.  For  the  Latin  of  the  middle 
ages,  I  know  of  nothing  in  a  smaller  form  than  Adelung's 
abridged  edition  of  Ducange ;  yet  this  abridgment  consists 
of  six  thick  octavos.  (5)  Maps  accommodated  to  the  geog- 
raphy of  the  middle  ages,  and  generally  accessible,  there  are 
I  think,  at  least  in  England,  none.*  We  have  nothing,  I 
think,  for  the  history  of  the  middle  ages  answering  in  fulness 
and  convenience  to  that  book  so  well  known  to  us  all,  Lem- 
priere's  Classical  Dictionary.  For  antiquities,  laws,  man- 
ners, customs,  &c.,  many  large  and  valuable  works  might 
be  named, — many  sources  of  information  scattered  about  in 
different  places ;  let  me  name  several  excellent  papers  by 
Lancelot,  St.  Palaye,  and  others,  occurring  in  the  volumes 
of  the  Memoirs  of  the  French  Academy, — but  a  cheap  popu- 
lar compendium  like  our  old  acquaintances  Adam  and  Pot- 
ter, or  the  more  improved  works  which  are  now  superseding 
them,  does  not,  I  believe,  exist.  My  object  in  stating  this  is 

*  AH  atlas  of  this  kind,  however,  exhibiting  the  several  countries  of  Europe 
at  successive  periods,  is  now  in  the  course  of  publication  in  Germany. 


LECTURE    II.  137 

twofold;  first,  because  to  state  publicly  the  want  is  iikely 
perhaps  to  excite  some  one  or  other  to  make  it  good ;  and 
secondly,  to  point  out  again  to  you  how  invaluable  is  the 
time  which  you  are  passing  in  this  place,  inasmuch  as  the 
libraries  here  furnish  you  with  that  information  in  abun- 
dance which  to  any  one  settled  in  the  country  is  in  ordinary 
cases  inaccessible. 

But  to  return  to  Philip  de  Comines.  We  find  well  exem 
plified  in  him  one  of  the  peculiarities  of  modern  history,  as 
distinguished  from  that  of  Greece  and  Rome,  the  importance 
namely  of  attending  to  genealogies.  Many  of  the  wars  of 
modern  Europe  have  been  succession  wars;  questions  of 
disputed  inheritance,  where  either  competitor  claimed  to  be 
the  legal  heir  of  the  last  undoubted  possessor  of  the  crown. 
Of  such  a  nature  were  the  great  French  wars  in  Italy  in  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  of  which  Comines  witnessed 
and  has  recorded  the  beginning.  And  this  same  thing  shows 
us  also  how  impossible  it  is  to  study  any  age  by  itself,  how 
necessarily  our  inquiries  run  back  into  previous  centuries, 
how  instinctively  we  look  forward  to  the  results  in  a  suc- 
ceeding period  of  what  we  are  now  studying  in  its  origin. 
For  instance,  Comines  records  the  marriage  of  Mary  duchess 
of  Burgundy,  daughter  and  sole  heiress  of  Charles  the  Bold, 
with  Maximilian  archduke  of  Austria.  This  marriage,  con- 
veying all  the  dominions  of  Burgundy  to  Maximilian  and  his 
heirs,  established  a  great  independent  sovereign  on  the  fron- 
tiers of  France,  giving  to  him  on  the  north,  not  only  the 
present  kingdoms  of  Holland  and  Belgium,  but  large  portions 
of  what  is  now  French  territory,  the  old  provinces  of  Artoise 
and  French  Flanders,  French  Hainault  and  French  Luxem- 
bourg :  while  on  the  east  it  gave  him  Franche  Comte,  thus 
yielding  him  a  footing  within  the  Jura,  on  the  very  banks 
of  the  Saone.  Thence  ensued,  in  after  ages,  when  the  Span- 
ish branch  of  the  house  of  Austria  had  inherited  this  part  of 

12* 


138  LECTURE    II. 

its  dominions,  the  long  contests  which  deluged  the  Nether, 
lands  with  blood,  the  campaigns  of  King  William  and  Lux- 
embourg,  the  nine  years  of  efforts  no  less  skilful  than  val- 
iant, in  which  Marlborough  broke  his  way  through  the 
fortresses  of  the  iron  frontier.  Again,  when  Spain  became 
in  a  manner  French  by  the  accession  of  the  house  of  Bour- 
bon,  the  Netherlands  reverted  once  more  to  Austria  itself; 
and  from  thence  the  powers  of  Europe  advanced  almost  in 
our  own  days  to  assail  France  as  a  republic ;  and  on  this 
ground,  on  the  plains  of  Fleurus,  was  won  the  first  of  those 
great  victories  which  for  nearly  twenty  years  carried  the 
French  standards  triumphantly  over  Europe.  Thus  the 
marriage  recorded  by  Comines  has  been  working  busily 
down  to  our  very  own  times :  it  is  only  since  the  settlement 
of  1814,  and  that  more  recent  one  of  1830,  that  the  Nether- 
lands have  ceased  to  be  affected  by  the  union  of  Charles  the 
Bold's  daughter  with  Maximilian  of  Austria. 

Again,  Comines  records  the  expedition  of  Charles  the 
Eighth  of  France  into  Italy  to  claim  the  crown  of  Naples. 
He  found  the  throne  filled  by  a  prince  of  the  house  of  Ara- 
gon.  A  Frenchman  and  a  Spaniard  contend  for  the  inheri- 
tance of  the  most  southern  kingdom  of  Italy.  We  are  obliged 
to  unroll  somewhat  more  of  the  scroll  of  time  than  the  part 
which  was  at  first  lying  open  before  us,  in  order  to  make  this 
part  intelligible.  The  French  king  represented  the  house  of 
Anjou,  the  elder  branch  of  which,  more  than  two  centuries 
earlier,  had  been  invited  by  the  pope  into  Italy  to  uphold  the 
Guelf  or  papal  cause  against  the  Ghibelines  or  party  of  the 
emperors ;  headed  as  it  was  by  Manfred  king  of  Naples,  son 
of  the  Swabian  emperor  of  the  house  of  Hohenstaufen,  Fred- 
erick the  Second.  And  thus  we  open  upon  the  rich  story 
of  the  contests  in  Italy  in  the  thirteenth  century,  the  conquer- 
ing marcn  of  Charles  of  Anjou,  the  unworthy  brother  of  the 
noblest  and  holiest  of  monarchs  Louis  the  Ninth ;  (6)  the 


LECTURE    II.  139 

battle  of  Benevento ;  the  sad  history  of  the  young  Conradin, 
Manfred's  nephew — his  defeat  at  Scurgola  under  the  old 
walls  of  the  Marsian  and  Pelasgian  Alba,  his  cruel  execu- 
tion, the  transferring  of  his  claims  to  Peter  of  Aragon,  who 
had  married  his  cousin  Constance,  Manfred's  daughter,  the 
tragedy  of  the  Sicilian  vespers,  and  the  enthroning  of  the 
Aragoneze  monarch  in  Sicily.  All  these  earlier  events, 
and  the  extinction  subsequently  of  the  elder  branch  of  the 
house  of  Anjou ;  the  crimes  and  misfortunes  of  queen  Joanna, 
her  adoption  of  the  younger  branch  of  the  house  of  Anjou, 
and  the  counter  adoption  of  a  prince  of  the  house  of  Aragon 
by  queen  Joanna  the  Second,  the  new  contest  between  the 
French  and  Spanish  princes,  and  the  triumph  of  the  latter  in 
1442,  fall  naturally  under  our  view,  in  order  to  explain  the 
expedition, of  Charles  the  Eighth.  I  say  nothing  of  inquiries 
less  closely  connected  with  our  main  subject,  inquiries  sug- 
gested by  the  events  of  the  Italian  expedition ;  the  state  of 
Florence  after  the  unsubstantial  lustre  of  Lorenzo  di  Medici's 
government  had  passed  away ;  the  state  of  the  papacy  when 
Alexander  the  Sixth  could  be  elected  to  fill  the  papal  chair. 
But  in  the  more  direct  inquiries  needed  to  illustrate  the  con- 
test in  Naples  itself,  we  see  how  wide  a  field  must  be  ex- 
plored of  earlier  times,  in  order  to  understand  the  passing 
events  of  modern  history. 

The  Memoirs  of  Philip  de  Comines  terminate  about  twenty 
years  before  the  reformation,  six  years  after  the  first  voyage 
of  Columbus.  They  relate  then  to  a  tranquil  period  immedi- 
ately preceding  a  period  of  extraordinary  movement ;  to  the 
last  stage  of  an  old  state  of  things,  now  on  the  point  of  passing 
away.  Such  periods,  the  lull  before  the  burst  of  the  hurri- 
cane, the  almost  oppressive  stillness  which  announces  the 
eruption,  or,  to  use  Campbell's  beautiful  image — 

"The  torrent's  smoothness  ere  it  dash  below," 


140  LECTURE    II. 

are  always,  1  tnink,  full  of  a  very  deep  interest.  But  it  is 
not  from  the  mere  force  of  contrast  with  the  times  that  follow, 
nor  yet  from  the  solemnity  which  all  things  wear  when  their 
dissolution  is  fast  approaching — the  interest  has  yet  another 
source ;  our  knowledge  namely,  that  in  that  tranquil  period 
lay  the  germs  of  the  great  changes  following,  taking  their 
shape  for  good  or  for  evil,  and  sometimes  irreversibly,  while 
all  wore  an  outside  of  unconsciousness.  We,  enlightened  by 
experience,  are  impatient  of  this  deadly  slumber,  we  wish  in 
vain  that  the  age  could  have  been  awakened  to  a  sense  of  its 
condition,  and  taught  the  infinite  preciousness  of  the  passing 
hour.  And  as  when  a  man  has  been  cut  off  by  sudden  death, 
we  are  curious  to  know  whether  his  previous  words  or  be- 
haviour  indicated  any  sense  of  his  coming  fate,  so  we  examine 
the  records  of  a  state  of  things  just  expiring,  anxious  to  ob- 
serve whether  in  any  point  there  may  be  discerned  an  anti- 
cipation of  the  great  future,  or  whether  all  was  blindness  and 
insensibility.  In  this  respect  Comines'  Memoirs  are  striking 
from  their  perfect  unconsciousness :  the  knell  of  the  middle 
ages  had  been  already  sounded,  yet  Comines  has  no  other 
notions  than  such  as  they  had  tended  to  foster ;  he  describes 
their  events,  their  characters,  their  relations,  as  if  they  were 
to  continue  for  centuries.  His  remarks  are  such  as  the 
simplest  form  of  human  affairs  gives  birth  to;  he  laments 
the  instability  of  earthly  fortune,  as  Homer  notes  our  common 
mortality,  or  in  the  tone  of  that  beautiful  dialogue  between 
Solon  and  Croesus,  when  the  philosopher  assured  the  king 
that  to  be  rich  was  not  necessarily  to  be  happy.  But  resem- 
bling Herodotus  in  his  simple  morality,  (7)  he  is  utterly  un- 
like him  in  another  point ;  for  whilst  Herodotus  speaks  freely 
and  honestly  of  all  men  without  respect  of  persons,  Philip  de 
Comi:  les  praises  his  master  Louis  the  Eleventh  as  one  of  the 
best  of  princes,  although  he  witnessed  not  only  the  crimes  of 
his  life,  but  the  miserable  fears  and  suspicions  of  his  latter 


LECTURE    II.  141 

end,  and  has  even  faithfully  recorded  them.  In  this  respect 
Philip  de  Comines  is  in  no  respect  superior  to  Froissart,  with 
whom  the  crimes  committed  by  his  knights  and  great  lords 
never  interfere  with  his  general  eulogies  of  them :  the  habit 
of  deference  and  respect  was  too  strong  to  be  broken,  and  the 
facts  which  he  himself  relates  to  their  discredit,  appear  to 
have  produced  on  his  mind  no  impression. 

It  is  not  then  in  Philip  de  Comines,  nor  in  the  other  histo- 
rians of  the  earlier  period  of  modern  history,  that  we  find  the 
greatest  historical  questions  presenting  themselves.  If  we 
attempt  to  ascend  to  these,  we  must  seek  them  by  ourselves ; 
the  historians  themselves  do  not  naturally  lead  us  to  them. 
But  we  must  now  proceed  to  the  second  or  more  complicated 
period,  and  we  must  see  to  what  kind  of  inquiries  the  histories 
of  this  period  immediately  introduce  us,  and  what  is  neces- 
sary to  enable  us  fully  to  understand  the  scenes  which  they 
present  to  us.  And  on  this  subject  I  hope  to  enter  in  my 
next  lecture. 


NOTES 


TO 


LECTURE     II. 


NOTE  1.—  Page  124. 

The  importance  to  the  cause  of  education,  of  right  theory  and 
practice  of  translation,  which  induced  Dr.  Arnold  to  speak  of  it 
though  only  slightly  connected  with  the  subject  of  his  lecture,  leads 
me  to  follow  it  somewhat  farther.  The  note  which  I  wish  to  add 
to  his  remarks  will  be  found  in  Appendix  III.  of  this  volume. 


NOTE  2.— Page  127. 

In  the  Preface  to  the  History  of  Rome,  (p.  x.,)  Dr.  Arnold 
speaks  of  Niebuhr's  "  master  art  of  doubting  rightly,  and  believing 
rightly." 


NOTE  3.— Page  130. 

Speaking  of  the  pagan  condition  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  and  their 
conversion  to  Christianity,  Mr.  Burke  writes — "  The  introduction 
of  Christianity,  which,  under  whatever  form,  always  confers  such 
inestimable  benefits  on  mankind,  soon  made  a  sensible  change  in 
these  rude  and  fierce  manners. 

"  It  is  by  no  means  impossible,  that,  for  an  end  so  worthy,  Provi 
dence,  on  some  occasions,  might  directly  have  interposed.  The 
books  which  contain  the  history  of  this  time  and  change,  are  little 
else  than  a  narrative  of  miracles ;  frequently,  however,  with  such 
apparent  marks  of  weakness  or  design,  that  they  afford  little  en- 
couragement to  insist  on  them.  They  were  received  with  a  blind 


NOTES    TO    LECTURE    II.  143 

credulity ;  they  have  been  since  rejected  with  as  undistinguishing 
a  disregard.  But  as  it  is  not  in  my  design  nor  inclination,  nor  in- 
deed in  my  power,  either  to  establish  or  refute  these  stories,  it  is 
sufficient  to  observe,  that  the  reality  or  opinion  of  such  miracles 
was  the  principal  cause  of  the  early  acceptance  and  rapid  progress 
of  Christianity  in  this  island." 

Essay  on  English  History,  book  ii.  ch.  1. 

NOTE  4.— Page  131. 

"  The  clearest  notion  which  can  be  given  of  rationalism  would, 
I  think,  be  this;  that  it  is  the  abuse  of  the  understanding  in 
subjects  where  the  divine"  and  the  human,  so  to  speak,  are  inter- 
mingled. Of  human  things  the  understanding  can  judge,  of  divine 
things  it  cannot ;  and  thus,  where  the  two  are  mixed  together,  its 
inability  to  judge  of  the  one  part  makes  it  derange  the  proportions 
of  both,  and  the  judgment  of  the  whole  is  vitiated.  For  example, 
the  understanding  examines  a  miraculous  history  :  it  judges  truly 
of  what  I  may  call  the  human  part  of  the  case  ;  that  is  to  say,  of 
the  rarity  of  miracles,  of  the  fallibility  of  human  testimony,  of  the 
proneness  of  most  minds  to  exaggeration,  and  of  the  critical  argu- 
ments affecting  the  genuineness  or  the  date  of  the  narrative  itself. 
But  it  forgets  the  divine  part,  namely,  the  power  and  providence  of 
God,  that  he  is  really  ever  present  amongst  us,  and  that  the  spiritual 
world,  which  exists  invisibly  all  around  us,  may  conceivably,  and 
by  no  means  impossibly  exist,  at  some  times  and  to  some  persons, 
even  visibly." 

Arnold's  Sermons,  vol.  iv.,  "  Christian  Life,  its  Course,  etc.," 

note,  p.  4C5. 

*  *  *  "  I  neither  affirm  nor  deny  any  thing  as  to  the  question 
how  often  in  the  history  of  the  Church,  or  in  what  periods  of  it, 
God  may  have  been  pleased  to  suspend  the  operations  of  interme- 
diate agents,  for  the  purpose  of  showing  that  He  is  at  all  times  the 
Author  and  Mover  of  them.  This  question  must  be  determined  by 
a  careful  study  of  historical  evidence ;  upon  the  result  of  such  a 
study  I  should  be  very  sorry  to  dogmatize.  Those  who  believe 
that  miracles  are  for  the  assertion  of  order,  and  not  for  the  viola- 
tion of  it,  for  the  sake  of  proving  the  constant  presence  of  a  spiri- 


144  NOTES 

tual  power,  and  not  for  the  sake  of  showing  that  it  interferes 
occasionally  with  the  affairs  of  the  world,  will  be  the  least  inclined 
o  expect  the  frequent  repetitions  of  such  signs,  for  they  hold,  that 
being  recorded  as  facts  in  the  former  ages  of  the  world,  they  be- 
come laws  in  ours,  that  we  are  to  own  Him,  who  healed  the  sick 
of  the  palsy,  in  every  cure  which  is  wrought  by  the  ordinary  phy- 
sician, Him  who  stilled  the  storm  on  the  Lake  of  Gennesareth,  in 
the  guidance  and  preservation  of  every  ship  which  crosses  the  ocean 
— and  that  this  effect  would  be  lost,  if  we  were  led  to  put  any  con- 
tempt upon  that  which  is  daily  and  habitual.  Still,  I  should  think  it 
very  presumptuous  to  say,  that  it  has  never  been  needful,  in  the 
modern  history  of  the  world,  to  break  the  idols  of  sense  and  expe- 
rience by  the  same  method  which  was  sanctioned  in  the  days  of  old. 
Far  less  should  I  be  inclined  to  underrate  the  piety,  and  criticize 
the  wisdom  and  honesty  of  those  men,  who,  missing  or  overlooking 
intermediate  powers,  of  which  they  knew  little,  at  once  referred 
the  acts  and  events  they  witnessed  to  their  primary  source." 

MAURICE'S  '  Kingdom  of  Christ,'  Part  II.,  chap,  iv.,  sect.  6 

NOTE  5.— Page  136. 

"  A  good  glossary  to  the  schoolmen  would  be  an  interesting  and 
instructive  work  ;  a  glossary  collecting  all  the  words  which  they 
coined,  pointing  out  the  changes  they  made  in  the  signification  of 
old  Latin  words,  explaining  the  ground  of  these  innovations,  and 
the  wants  they  were  meant  to  supply,  and  tracking  all  these  words 
through  the  various  languages  of  modern  Europe.  Valuable  as 
Ducange's  great  work  is  for  political,  legal,  ecclesiastical,  military, 
and  all  manner  of  technical  words,  we  still  want  a  similar,  though 
a  far  less  bulky  and  laborious  collection  of  such  words  as  his  plan 
did  not  embrace,  especially  of  philosophical,  scientific,  and  medical 
words,  before  we  can  be  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  alterations 
which  Latin  underwent,  when,  from  being  the  language  of  Rome, 
it  became  that  of  all  persons  of  education  throughout  Europe. 
Even  from  Ducange  it  would  be  well  if  some  industrious  gram- 
marian would  pick  out  all  such  words  as  have  left  any  offspring 
amongst  us.  Then  alone  shall  we  be  prepared  for  understanding 
the  history  of  the  English  language,  when  its  various  elements 


TO    LECTURE    II  145 

have   be  3  a  carefully   separated,   collected,   arranged,  and   classi- 
fied." 

1  Guesses  at  Truth,'  p.  140. 


NOTE  6. — Page  138. 

"  No  direct  instruction  could  leave  on  their  (the  pupils  at  Rugby) 
minds  a  livelier  image  of  his  (Dr.  Arnold's)  disgust  at  moral  evil, 
than  the  black  cloud  of  indignation  which  passed  over  his  face 
when  speaking  of  the  crimes  of  Napoleon  or  of  Caesar,  and  the 
dead  pause  which  followed,  as  if  the  acts  had  just  been  committed 
in  his  very  presence.  No  expression  of  his  reverence  for  a  high 
standard  of  Christian  excellence  could  have  been  more  striking 
than  the  almost  involuntary  expressions  of  admiration  which  broke 
from  him  whenever  mention  was  made  of  St.  Louis  of  France." 

Life,  chap.  iii. 

NOTE  7.— Page  140. 

It  is  perhaps  partly  for  the  pleasure  of  quoting  from  a  work 
abounding  in  beautiful  and  wise  criticism — one  of  the  most  valuable 
contributions  that  has  been  made  to  critical  literature — a  model  of 
what  Christian  imaginative  criticism  should  be — that  I  select  Mr, 
Keble's  words  respecting  the  '  simple  morality'  of  Herodotus. 

*  *  "  Habemus  Herodotum,  habemus  Platonem :    quorum  alter 
Homerum   refert   non  lingua  tantum   lonica,  et   simplicitate  ilia 
ipxatoTp6K<?,  sed  et  universe  genere  narrandi,  et  maxime  omnium 
propter  quasdam  sententias,  de  vita  caduca,  rerumque  mortalium 
segritudine,  quas  ille  mira   dulcedine  narrationibus  suis  intertexi 

curavit."  *  * 

KEBLE  :  Pr&lectiones,  i.  273. 

*  *  *  "  If  I  were  called  upon  to  name  what  spirit  of  evil  pre- 
dominantly deserved  the  name  of  Antichrist,  I  should  name  the 
spirit  of  chivalry* — the  more  detestable  for  the  very  guise  of  the 

*  "  Chivalry,"  or  (as  Dr.  Arnold  used  more  frequently  to  call  the  element  in  the 
middle  ages  which  he  thus  condemned)  "  feudality,  is  especially  Keltic  and  barbarian 
—incompatible  with  the  highest  virtue  of  which  man  is  capable,  and  the  last  at  which 
he  arrives— a  sense  of  justice.  It  sets  up  the  personal  allegiance  to  the  chief  above 
allegiance  to  God  and  law." 

13 


146  NOTES    TO    LECTURE    II. 

'Archangel  ruined,' which  has  made  it  so  seductive  to  the  most 
generous  spirits — but  to  me  so  hateful,  because  it  is  in  direct  oppo- 
sition to  the  impartial  justice  of  the  Gospel,  and  its  comprehensive 
feeling  of  equal  brotherhood,  and  because  it  so  fostered  a  sense  of 
honour  rather  than  a  sense  of  duty." 

Life  and  Correspondence,  chap,  v.,  letter  4. 

*  *  *  "  One  relation  alone,  beyond  those  of  blood,  seems  to  have 
been  acknowledged,"  (in  Cisalpine  Gaul  in  the  3d  century,  A.  c. ;) 
"  the  same  which,  introduced  into  Europe  six  hundred  years  after- 
wards by  the  victories  of  the  German  barbarians,  has  deeply  tainted 
modern  society  down  to  this  hour ;  the  relation  of  chief  and  fol- 
lowers, or,  as  it  was  called  in  its  subsequent  form,  lord  and  vassals. 
The  head  of  a  family  distinguished  for  his  strength  and  courage 
gathered  around  him  a  numerous  train  of  followers  from  other  fam- 
ilies ;  and  they  formed  his  clan,  or  band,  or  followers,  bound  to  him 
for  life  and  death,  bestowing  on  him  those  feelings  of  devoted  at- 
tachment, which  can  be  safely  entertained  only  towards  the  com- 
monwealth and  its  laws,  and  rendering  him  that  blind  obedience 
which  is  wickedness  when  paid  to  any  less  than  God.  This  evil 
and  degrading  bond  is  well  described  by  the  Greek  and  Roman 
writers,  by  words  expressive  of  unlawful  and  anti-social  combina- 
tions, ('Factio,'  Caesar,  de  Bell.  Gallic,  vi.  11;  iratptta,  Polybius, 
ii.  17 :)  it  is  the  same  which  in  other  times  and  countries  has  ap- 
peared in  the  shape  of  sworn  brotherhoods,  factions,  parties,  sects, 
clubs,  secret  societies,  and  unions,  everywhere  and  in  every  form 
the  worst  enemy  both  of  individual  and  of  social  excellence,  as  it 
substitutes  other  objects  in  place  of  those  to  which  as  men  and  citi- 
zens we  ought  only  to  be  bound,  namely,  GOD  and  LAW." 

Hist,  of  Rome,  vol.  iii.,  note,  p.  476. 


LECTURE  III 


IT  is  my  hope,  if  I  am  allowed  to  resume  these  lectures 
next  year,  to  enter  fully  into  the  history  of  some  one  charac- 
teristic period  of  the  middle  ages,  to  point  out  as  well  as  I 
can  the  sources  of  information  respecting  it,  and  to  paint  it, 
and  enable  you  to  judge  of  its  nature  both  absolutely  and 
relatively  to  us.  But  for  the  present,  I  must  turn  to  that 
period  which  is  properly  to  be  called  modern  history,  the 
modern  of  the  modern,  the  complicated  period  as  I  have  call- 
ed it,  in  contradistinction  to  the  simpler  period  which  preceded 
it.  And  here  too,  if  life  and  health  be  spared  me,  I  hope 
hereafter  to  enter  into  minute  details ;  selecting  some  one 
country  as  the  principal  subject  of  our  inquiries,  and  illus- 
trating the  lessons  of  history  for  the  most  part  from  its  par- 
ticular experience.  Now,  however,  I  must  content  myself 
with  more  general  notices  :  I  must  remember  that  I  am 
endeavouring  to  assist  the  student  of  modern  history,  by  sug- 
gesting to  him  the  best  method  of  studying  it,  and  pointing 
out  the  principal  difficulties  which  will  impede  his  progress. 
I  must  not  suppose  the  student  to  be  working  only  at  the  his- 
tory of  one  country,  or  one  age  :  the  points  of  interest  in  the 
three  last  centuries  are  so  numerous  that  our  researches  may 
be  carried  on  far  apart  from  each  other,  and  I  must  endeavour, 
so  far  as  my  knowledge  will  permit,  to  render  these  lectures 
serviceable  generally. 

Now  in  the  first  place,  when  we  enter  upon  modern  history, 
our  work,  limit  it  as  we  will,  unavoidably  grows  in  magni- 


148  LECTURE  III. 

cude.  Allowing  that  we  are  not  so  extravagant  as  to  aim  at 
mastering  the  details  of  the  history  of  the  whole  world,  that 
we  set  aside  oriental  history  and  colonial  history ;  that  far- 
ther, having  now  restricted  ourselves  to  Europe,  we  separate 
the  western  kingdoms  from  the  northern  and  eastern,  and 
confine  our  attention  principally  to  our  own  country  and  to 
those  which  have  been  most  closely  connected  with  it;  yet 
still  the  limit  which  we  strive  to  draw  round  our  inquiries 
will  be  continually  broken  through,  they  will  and  must  extend 
themselves  beyond  it.  Northern,  eastern,  and  south-eastern 
Europe,  the  vast  world  of  European  colonies,  nay  sometimes 
the  distinct  oriental  world  itself,  will  demand  our  attention  : 
there  is  scarcely  a  portion  of  the  globe  of  which  we  can  be  suf- 
fered to  remain  in  complete  ignorance.  Amidst  this  wide  field, 
widening  as  it  were  before  us  at  every  step,  it  becomes  doubly 
important  to  gain  certain  principles  of  inquiry,  lest  we  should 
be  wandering  about  vaguely  like  an  ignorant  man  in  an  ill- 
arranged  museum,  seeing  and  wondering  at  much,  but  learn- 
ing nothing. 

The  immense  variety  of  history  makes  it  very  possible  for 
different  persons  to  study  it  with  different  objects ;  and  here 
we  have  an  obvious  and  convenient  division.  But  the  great 
object,  as  I  cannot  but  think,  is  that  which  most  nearly  touches 
the  inner  life  of  civilized  man,  namely,  the  vicissitudes  of 
institutions,  social,  political,  and  religious.  This,  in  my 
judgment,  is  the  rsXsioVarov  <rs'Xo£  of  historical  inquiry;  but 
because  of  its  great  and  crowning  magnitude  we  will  assign  to 
it  its  due  place  of  honour,  we  will  survey  the  exterior  and  the 
outer  courts  of  the  temple,  before  we  approach  the  sanctuary. 

In  history,  as  in  other  things,  a  knowledge  of  the  external 
is  needed  before  we  arrive  at  that  which  is  within.  We  want 
to  get  a  sort  of  frame  for  our  picture  ;  a  set  of  local  habita- 
tions, Totfoi,  where  our  ideas  may  be  arranged,  a  scene  in 
which  the  struggle  of  principles  is  to  be  fought,  and  men  who 


LECTURE   III. 

are  to  fight  it.  And  thus  we  want  to  know  clearly  the  geo- 
graphical bounds  of  different  countries,  and  their  external 
revolutions.  This  leads  us  in  the  first  instance  to  geography 
and  military  history,  even  if  our  ultimate  object  lies  beyond. 
But  being  led  to  them  by  necessity,  we  linger  in  them  after- 
wards from  choice ;  so  much  is  there  in  both  of  the  most 
picturesque  and  poetical  character,  so  much  of  beauty,  of 
magnificence,  and  of  interest,  physical  and  moral. 

The  student  of  modern  history  especially  needs  a  knowledge 
of  geography,  because,  as  I  have  said,  his  inquiries  will  lead 
him  first  or  last  to  every  quarter  of  the  globe.  But  let  us 
consider  a  little  what  a  knowledge  of  geography  is.  First,  I 
grant,  it  is  a  knowledge  of  the  relative  position  and  distance 
of  places  from  one  another :  and  by  places  I  mean  either 
towns,  or  the  habitations  of  particular  tribes  or  nations ;  for 
I  think  our  first  notion  of  a  map  is  that  of  a  plan  of  the  dwell- 
ings of  the  human  race  ;  we  connect  it  strictly  with  man, 
and  with  man's  history.  And  here  I  believe  many  persons' 
geography  stops  :  they  have  an  idea  of  the  shape,  relative 
position,  and  distance  of  different  countries  ;  and  of  the  posi- 
tion, that  is,  as  respects  the  points  of  the  compass,  and  mutual 
distance,  of  the  principal  towns.  Every  one  for  example  has 
a  notion  of  the  shapes  of  France  and  of  Italy,  that  one  is 
situated  north-west  of  the  other,  and  that  their  frontiers  join  : 
and  again,  every  one  knows  that  Paris  is  situated  in  the 
north  of  France,  Bordeaux  in  the  south-west ;  that  Venice 
lies  at  the  north-east  corner  of  Italy,  and  Rome  nearly  in  the 
middle  as  regards  north  and  south,  and  near  to  the  western 
sea.  Thus  much  of  knowledge  is  indeed  indispensable  to  the 
simplest  understanding  of  history ;  and  this  kind  of  know- 
ledge, extending  over  more  or  less  countries  as  it  may  be, 
and  embracing  with  more  or  less  minuteness  the  divisions  of 
provinces,  and  the  position  of  the  smaller  towns,  is  that  which 
passes,  I  believe,  with  many  for  a  knowledge  of  geography. 

13* 


150  LECTURE    III. 

Yet  you  will  observe,  that  this  knowledge  does  not  touch 
the  earth  itself,  but  only  the  dwellings  of  men  upon  the 
earth.  It  regards  the  shapes  of  a  certain  number  of  great 
national  estates,  if  I  may  so  call  them ;  the  limits  of  which, 
like  those  of  individuals'  property,  have  often  respect  to  no 
natural  boundaries,  but  are  purely  arbitrary.  A  real  know, 
ledge  of  geography  embraces  at  once  a  knowledge  of  the 
earth,  and  of  the  dwellings  of  man  upon  it ;  it  stretches  out 
one  hand  to  history,  and  the  other  to  geology  and  physiology : 
it  is  just  that  part  in  the  dominion  of  knowledge  where  the 
students  of  physical  and  of  moral  science  meet  together. 

And  without  denying  the  usefulness  of  that  plan-like  know 
ledge  of  geography  of  which  I  was  just  now  speaking,  it  can- 
not  be  doubted  that  a  far  deeper  knowledge  of  it  is  required 
by  him  who  would  study  history  effectively.  And  the  deeper 
knowledge  becomes  far  the  easier  to  remember.  For  my 
own  part  I  find  it  extremely  difficult  to  remember  the  position 
of  towns,  when  I  have  no  other  association  with  them  thar 
their  situation  relatively  to  each  other.  But  let  me  once 
understand  the  real  geography  of  a  country,  its  organic 
structure  if  I  may  so  call  it :  the  form  of  its  skeleton,  that  is 
of  its  hills :  the  magnitude  and  course  of  its  veins  and  arteries 
that  is,  of  its  streams  and  rivers :  let  me  conceive  of  it  as  of 
a  whole  made  up  of  connected  parts ;  and  then  the  position 
of  man's  dwellings,  viewed  in  reference  to  these  parts,  be- 
comes at  once  easily  remembered,  and  lively  and  intelligible 
besides. 

I  said  that  geography  held  out  one  hand  to  geology  and 
physiology,  while  she  held  out  the  other  to  history.  In  fact, 
geology  and  physiology  themselves  are  closely  connected  with 
history.  For  instance,  what  lies  at  the  bottom  of  that  ques- 
tion which  is  now  being  discussed  everywhere,  the  question 
of  the  corn-laws,  but  the  geological  fact  that  England  is  more 
richly  supplied  with  coal-mines  than  any  other  country  in 


LECTURE    III.  151 

tno  world  ?*  What  has  given  a  peculiar  interest  to  our  rela- 
tions with  China,  but  the  physiological  fact,  that  the  tea- 
plant,  which  is  become  so  necessary  to  our  daily  life,  has 
been  cultivated  with  equal  success  in  no  other  climate  or 
country  ?  What  is  it  which  threatens  the  permanence  of 
the  union  between  the  northern  and  southern  states  of  the 
American  confederacy,  but  the  physiological  fact  that  the 
soil  and  climate  of  the  southern  states  render  them  essentially 
agricultural ;  while  those  of  the  northern  states,  combined 
with  their  geographical  advantages  as  to  sea-ports,  dispose 
them  no  less  naturally  to  be  manufacturing  and  commercial  ? 
The  whole  character  of  a  nation  may  be  influenced  by  its 
geology  and  physical  geography. 


*  The  importance  of  our  coal-mines  is  so  great,  that  I  think  it  a  duty  to 
reprint  here  a  note  of  Dr.  Buckland's,  which  is  to  be  found  in  p.  41  of  his 
*'  Address  delivered  at  the  Anniversary  Meeting  of  the  Geological  Society  of 
London,  19th  of  February,  1841."  •  What  Dr.  Buckland  says  on  such  a  subject 
is  of  the  very  highest  authority ;  and  should  be  circulated  as  widely  as  possible. 

"  As  no  more  coal  is  in  process  of  formation,  and  our  national  prosperity  must 
inevitably  terminate  with  the  exhaustion  of  those  precious  stores  of  mineral 
fuel,  which  form  the  foundation  of  our  greatest  manufacturing  and  commer- 
cial establishments,  I  feel  it  my  duty  to  entreat  the  attention  of  the  legislature 
to  two  evil  practices  which  are  tending  to  accelerate  the  period  when  the  con- 
tents of  our  coal-mines  will  have  been  consumed.  The  first  of  these  is  the 
wanton  waste  which  for  more  than  fifty  years  has  been  committed  by  the 
coal-owners  near  Newcastle,  by  screening  and  burning  annually  in  never- 
extinguished  fiery  heaps  at  the  pits'  mouth,  more  than  one  million  of  chaldrons 
of  excellent  small  coal,  being  nearly  one  third  of  the  entire  produce  of  the  best 
coal-mines  in  England.  This  criminal  destruction  of  the  elements  of  our 
national  industry,  which  is  accelerating  by  one  third  the  not  very  distant 
period  when  these  mines  will  be  exhausted,  is  perpetrated  by  the  colliers,  for 
the  purpose  of  selling  the  remaining  two-thirds  at  a  greater  profit  than  they 
would  derive  from  the  sale  of  the  entire  bulk  unscreened  to  the  coal-merchant. 

"  The  second  evil  is  the  exportation  of  eoal  to  foreign  countries,  in  some  of 
which  it  is  employed  to  work  the  machinery  of  rival  manufactories,  that  in 
certain  cases  could  scarcely  be  maintained  without  a  supply  of  British  coals. 
In  J839, 1,431,861  tons  were  exported,  and  in  1840,  1,592,283  tons,  of  which 
nearly  one  fourth  were  sent  to  France.  An  increased  duty  on  coals  exported 
to  any  country,  excepting  our  own  colonies,  might  afford  a  remedy.  See  note 
on  this  subject  in  my  Bridgewater  Treatise,  vol.  i.  p.  535." 


152  LECTURE    III. 

But  for  the  sake  of  its  mere  beauty  and  liveliness,  if  there 
were  no  other  consideration,  it  would  be  worth  our  while  to 
acquire  this  richer  view  of  geography.  Conceive  only  the 
difference  between  a  ground-plan  and  a  picture.  The  mere 
plan-geography  of  Italy  gives  us  its  shape,  as  I  have  ob- 
served, and  the  position  of  its  towns ;  to  these  it  may  add  a 
semicircle  of  mountains  round  the  northern  boundary,  to  re- 
present  the  Alps ;  and  another  long  line  stretching  down  the 
middle  of  the  country,  to  represent  the  Apennines.  But  let 
us  carry  on  this  a  little  farther,  and  give  life,  and  meaning, 
and  harmony  to  what  is  at  present  at  once  lifeless  and  con- 
fused. Observe  in  the  first  place,  how  the  Apennine  line, 
beginning  from  the  southern  extremity  of  the  Alps,  runs 
across  Italy  to  the  very  edge  of  the  Adriatic,  and  thus  sepa- 
rates naturally  the  Italy  proper  of  the  Romans  from  Cisalpine 
Gaul.  Observe  again,  how  the  Alps,  after  running  north 
and  south  where  they  divide  Italy  from  France,  turn  then- 
away  to  the  eastward,  running  almost  parallel  to  the  Apen- 
nines, till  they  too  touch  the  head  of  the  Adriatic,  on  the 
confines  of  Istria.  Thus  between  these  two  lines  of  moun- 
tains there  is  enclosed  one  great  basin  or  plain ;  enclosed  on 
three  sides  by  mountains,  open  only  on  the  east  to  the  sea. 
Observe  how  widely  it  spreads  itself  out,  and  then  see  how 
well  it  is  watered.  One  great  river  flows  through  it  in  its 
whole  extent ;  and  this  is  fed  by  streams  almost  unnumbered, 
descending  towards  it  on  either  side,  from  the  Alps  on  one 
side,  and  from  the  Apennines  on  the  other.  Who  can  wonder 
that  this  large,  and  rich,  and  well-watered  plain  should  be 
filled  with  flourishing  cities,  or  that  it  should  have  been  con- 
tended  for  so  often  by  successive  invaders  ?  Then  descend- 
ing into  Italy  proper,  we  find  the  complexity  of  its  geography 
quite  in  accordance  with  its  manifold  political  divisions.  It 
is  not  one  simple  central  ridge  of  mountains,  leaving  a  broad 
belt  of  level  country  on  either  side  between  it  and  the  sea  ; 


LECTURE    III.  153 

nor  yet  is  it  a  chain  rising  immediately  from  the  sea  on  one 
side,  like  the  Andes  in  South  America,  and  leaving  room 
therefore  on  the  other  side  for  wide  plains  of  table-land,  and 
for  rivers  with  a  sufficient  length  of  course  to  become  at  last 
great  and  navigable.  It  is  a  back-bone  thickly  set  with 
spines  of  unequal  length,  some  of  them  running  out  at  regu- 
lar distances  parallel  to  each  other,  but  others  twisted  so 
strangely  that  they  often  run  for  a  long  way  parallel  to  the 
back-bone,  or  main  ridge,  and  interlace  with  one  another  in 
a  maze  almost  inextricable.  And  as  if  to  complete  the  dis- 
order, in  those  spots  where  the  spines  of  the  Apennines,  being 
twisted  round,  run  parallel  to  the  sea  and  to  their  own  cen- 
tral chain,  and  thus  leave  an  interval  of  plain  between  their 
bases  and  the  Mediterranean,  volcanic  agency  has  broken  up 
the  space  thus  left  with  other  and  distinct  groups  of  hills  of 
its  own  creation,  as  in  the  case  of  Vesuvius  and  of  the  Alban 
hills  near  Rome.  Speaking  generally  then,  Italy  is  made 
up  of  an  infinite  multitude  of  valleys  pent  in  between  high 
and  steep  hills,  each  forming  a  country  to  itself,  and  cut  off 
by  natural  barriers  from  the  others.  Its  several  parts  are 
isolated  by  nature,  and  no  art  of  man  can  thoroughly  unite 
them.  Even  the  various  provinces  of  the  same  kingdom  are 
strangers  to  each  other ;  the  Abruzzi  are  like  an  unknown 
world  to  the  inhabitants  of  Naples,  insomuch  that  when  two 
Neapolitan  naturalists  not  ten  years  since  made  an  excursion 
to  visit  the  Majella,  one  of  the  highest  of  the  central  Apen 
nines,  they  found  there  many  medicinal  plants  growing  in 
the  greatest  profusion,  which  the  Neapolitans  were  regularly 
in  the  habit  of  importing  from  other  countries,  as  no  one  sus- 
pected their  existence  within  their  own  kingdom.  Hence 
arises  the  romantic  character  of  Italian  scenery;  the  constant 
combination  of  a  mountain  outline,  and  all  the  wild  features 
of  a  mountain  country,  with  the  rich  vegetation  of  a  southern 
climate  in  the  valleys :  hence  too  the  rudeness,  the  pastoral 


154  LECTURE    III. 

simplicity,  and  the  occasional  robber  habits,  to  be  found  it 
the  population ;  so  that  to  this  day  you  may  travel  in  many 
places  for  miles  together  in  the  plains  and  valleys  without 
passing  through  a  single  town  or  village  :  for  the  towns  still 
cluster  on  the  mountain  sides,  the  houses  nestling  together  on 
some  scanty  ledge,  with  cliffs  rising  above  them  and  sinking 
down  abruptly  below  them,  the  very  "  congesta  manu  prse- 
ruptis  oppida  saxis"  of  Virgil's  description,  which  he  even 
then  called  "  antique  walls,"  because  they  had  been  the 
strongholds  of  the  primeval  inhabitants  of  the  country,  and 
which  are  still  inhabited  after  a  lapse  of  so  many  centuries, 
nothing  of  the  stir  and  movement  of  other  parts  of  Europe 
having  penetrated  into  these  lonely  valleys,  and  tempted  the 
people  to  quit  their  mountain  fastnesses  for  a  more  accessible 
dwelling  in  the  plain.  I  have  been  led  on  farther  than  I  in- 
tended ;  but  I  wished  to  give  an  example  of  what  I  meant  by 
a  real  and  lively  knowledge  of  geography,  which  brings  the 
whole  character  of  a  country  before  our  eyes,  and  enables 
us  to  understand  its  influence  upon  the  social  and  political 
condition  of  its  inhabitants.  And  this  knowledge,  as  I  said 
before,  is  very  important  to  enable  us  to  follow  clearly  the 
external  revolutions  of  different  nations,  which  we  want  to 
comprehend  before  we  penetrate  to  what  has  been  passing 
within.  (1) 

The  undoubted  tendency  of  the  last  three  centuries  has 
been  to  consolidate  what  were  once  separate  states  or  king- 
doms into  one  great  nation.  The  Spanish  peninsula,  which 
in  earlier  times  had  contained  many  distinct  states,  came  to 
consist  as  at  present  of  two  kingdoms  only,  Spain  and  Portu- 
gal, in  the  last  ten  years  of  the  fifteenth  century.  France 
about  the  same  period  acquired  Bretagne  and  Provence,  but 
its  acquisitions  of  Artois,  of  Franche  Comtc,  of  French  Flan- 
ders, of  Lorraine,  and  of  Alsace,  have  been  much  later ; 
and  Avignon  and  its  territory  were  not  acquired  till  the  rev 


LECTURE    III.  155 

olution.  For  a  century  after  the  beginning  of  our  period, 
Scotland  and  England  were  governed  by  different  sover- 
eigns ;  for  two  centuries  they  remained  distinct  kingdoms ; 
and  the  legislative  union  with  Ireland  is  no  older  than  the 
present  century.  Looking  eastward,  how  many  kingdoms 
and  states  have  been  swallowed  up  in  the  empire  of  Austria : 
Bohemia,  and  Hungary :  the  duchies  of  Milan  and  Mantua, 
and  the  republic  of  Venice.  The  growth  of  Prussia  into  a 
mighty  kingdom,  and  Russia  into  the  most  colossal  of  em- 
pires, is  the  work  of  the  last  century  or  of  the  present. 
Even  in  Germany  and  Italy,  where  smaller  states  still  sub- 
sist, the  same  law  has  been  in  operation ;  of  all  the  free  im- 
perial cities  of  Germany  four  only  are  left,  Frankfort,  Ham- 
burg, Bremen,  and  Lubec  ;  and  not  Prussia  only,  but  Bavaria 
has  grown  into  a  great  kingdom.  So  it  has  been  in  Italy ; 
Venice  and  Genoa  have  both  been  absorbed  in  our  own  days 
into  the  monarchies  of  Austria  and  Sardinia ;  but  the  six- 
teenth century,  and  even  the  fifteenth  had  begun  this  work  : 
Venice  had  extinguished  the  independence  of  Padua  and 
Verona ;  Florence  had  conquered  its  rival  Pisa :  and  at  a 
later  period  the  duchies  of  Ferrara  and  Urbino  fell  under 
the  dominion  of  the  popes.  This  then  has  been  the  tendency 
of  things  generally ;  but  it  has  been  a  tendency  by  no  means 
working  unchecked;  on  the  contrary,  wherever  it  has  threat- 
ened to  lead  to  the  universal  or  overbearing  dominion  of  a 
single  state,  it  has  been  strenuously  resisted,  and  resisted 
with  success ;  as  in  the  case  of  Austria  and  Spain  in  the  six- 
teenth and  early  part  of  the  seventeenth  centuries,  of  France 
at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  and  beginning  of  the  eigh- 
teenth ;  of  England  in  some  degree  after  the  peace  of  Paris 
in  1763,  and  again  of  France  in  our  own  times.  These  suc- 
cessive excesses  of  the  tendency  towards  consolidation,  and 
,he  resistance  offered  to  them,  afford  some  of  the  most  conve« 


156  LECTURE    III. 

nient  divisions  for  the  external  history  of  modern  Europe, 
and  as  such  I  will  briefly  notice  them. 

We  have  seen  that  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
France  and  Spain  had  already  become  greatly  consolidated 
within  themselves;  the  former  by  the  acquisition  of  the 
duchy  of  Burgundy,  of  Provence,  and  above  all  of  Bre- 
tagne ;  the  latter  by  the  union  of  the  kingdoms  of  Castile 
and  Leon,  and  the  destruction  of  the  Moorish  kingdom  of 
Granada.  But  after  the  marriage  of  the  heiress  of  Burgun- 
dy to  Maximilian  archduke  of  Austria  had  united  the  Neth- 
erlands and  Franche  Comte  to  the  Austrian  dominions,  the 
subsequent  marriage  of  the  archduke  Philip,  Maximilian's 
son,  with  Joanna  daughter  and  heiress  of  Ferdinand  and  Isa- 
bella, added  to  them  besides  in  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth 
century  the  whole  inheritance  of  the  crown  of  Spain.  And 
as  the  kingdom  of  Naples  had  finally  fallen  into  the  hands 
of  Ferdinand  of  Aragon,  at  the  termination  of  the  long 
struggle  between  the  Aragoneze  line  and  that  of  Anjou, 
Naples  also  was  included  in  this  inheritance.  So  that  when 
Charles  the  Fifth,  the  archduke  Philip's  son,  succeeded  his 
grandfather  Maximilian  as  emperor,  in  1519,  the  mass  of  his 
dominions  seemed  to  put  him  in  the  way  of  acquiring  a 
universal  emwre.  And  this  Austro-Spanish  power  is  t*:.t 
first  of  those  which  going  beyond  the  just  limits  of  the  law 
of  consolidation  of  states,  threatened  to  alter  altogether  the 
condition  of  Europe. 

It  was  opposed  principally  by  France,  kept  at  bay  by 
Francis  the  First  throughout  his  reign,  notwithstanding  the 
defeats  which  he  suffered;  humbled  by  the  successful  al- 
liance of  his  successor  Henry  the  Second  with  the  German 
Protestants  in  1551,  and  finally  dissolved  by  the  abdication 
of  Charles  the  Fifth,  and  the  consequent  division  of  his  em- 
pire,  his  brother  Ferdinand  succeeding  to  his  German  do- 
minions, whilst  his  son  Philip  inherited  Spain,  Naples,  and 


LECTURE    III.  157 

the  Netherlands.  This  took  place  in  1555,  the  second  year 
of  the  reign  of  our  queen  Mary. 

But  though  deprived  of  his  father's  German  dominions, 
yet  the  inheritance  of  Philip  the  Second  was  still  so  ample 
that  the  Spanish  power  itself  overstepped  its  just  bounds,  and 
became  a  new  object  of  alarm  to  Europe.  The  conquest  of 
Portugal  after  the  death  of  king  Sebastian  in  Africa  had 
given  to  Philip  the  whole  Spanish  peninsula;  to  this  were 
added  the  Spanish  discoveries  and  conquests  in  America, 
with  the  wealth  derived  from  them ;  besides  the  kingdom  of 
Naples,  including  the  islands  of  Sardinia  and  Sicily,  and  the 
seventeen  provinces  of  the  Netherlands.  There  was  this 
important  circumstance  in  addition,  that  France,  which  had 
successfully  resisted  Charles  the  Fifth,  was  now  distracted 
by  its  own  religious  wars,  and  in  no  condition  to  uphold  the 
balance  of  power  abroad.  The  dominion  of  Philip  the  Sec- 
ond was  therefore  a  very  reasonable  cause  of  alarm. 

But  this  too  was  resisted  and  dissolved  ;  principally  owing 
to  the  revolt  of  the  Netherlands,  the  opposition  of  England, 
and  the  return  of  France  to  her  proper  place  amongst  Euro- 
pean powers,  when  her  religious  wars  were  ended  by  Henry 
the  Fourth.  Philip  lived  to  see  the  decline  of  his  power, 
and  the  dismemberment  of  his  empire  was  sanctioned  by  his 
successor  Philip  the  Third,  who  virtually  resigned  his  claim 
to  the  sovereignty  of  the  seven  united  provinces  of  the  Neth- 
erlands, the  newly- formed  republic  of  Holland.  This  great 
concession,  expressed  under  the  form  of  a  truce  for  twelve 
years,  was  made  in  the  year  1609,  the  sixth  year  of  the 
reign  of  our  James  the  First. 

During  the  reign  of  Philip  the  Second,  Austria  had  stood 
Aloof  from  Spain ;  but  in  the  reigns  of  his  successors  the  two 
tranches  of  the  Austrian  line  were  drawn  more  closely  to- 
gether, and  their  power  was  exerted  for  the  same  object. 
The  conquest  of  the  Palatinate  by  the  emoeror  Ferdinand 

14 


158  LECTURE    III. 

the  Second,  in  1622,  again  excited  general  alarm,  and  resist- 
ance was  organized  once  more  against  the  dangerous  power 
of  the  house  of  Austria.  France,  under  Richelieu,  was  once 
more  the  principal  bond  of  the  union,  but  the  power  which 
acted  the  most  prominent  part  was  one  which  had  not  hith- 
erto interfered  in  the  general  affairs  of  Europe,  the  northern 
kingdom  of  Sweden.  Sweden,  Holland,  and  the  Protestant 
states  of  Germany,  were  leagued  against  the  house  of  Aus- 
tria under  its  two  heads,  the  emperor  and  the  king  of  Spain. 
Again  the  resisting  power  triumphed ;  the  Austrian  power  in 
Germany  was  effectually  restrained  by  the  peace  of  West- 
phalia, in  1648 ;  Spain  saw  Portugal  again  become  an  in- 
dependent kingdom,  and  when  she  ended  her  quarrel  with 
France  by  the  peace  of  the  Pyrenees,  in  1659,  she  retired 
for  ever  from  the  foremost  place  amongst  the  powers  of  Eu 
rope. 

Austria  thus  curbed,  and  Spain  falling  into  decline,  room 
was  left  for  others  to  succeed  to  the  highest  place  in  Europe, 
now  left  vacant,  and  that  place  was  immediately  occupied  by 
France.  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  Henry  the  Fourth's  grand- 
son, began  to  reign  without  governors  in  the  year  1661,  the 
year  after  our  restoration,  and  for  the  next  twenty  or  thirty 
years  the  French  power  became  more  and  more  formidable. 
Its  conquests  indeed  were  not  considerable,  when  compared 
with  those  of  a  later  period,  yet  were  they  in  themselves  of 
great  and  enduring  importance.  French  Flanders  gave  to 
France  the  fortress  of  Lisle  and  the  port  of  Dunkirk. 
Franche  Comte  extended  its  frontier  to  the  eastern  slope  of 
the  Jura,  and  the  borders  of  Switzerland ;  Alsace  carried  it 
over  the  crest  of  the  Vosges,  and  established  it  on  the  Rhine. 
But  the  power  of  France  was  not  to  be  judged  of  merely  by 
its  territorial  conquests.  Its  navy  had  arisen  from  nothing 
to  the  sovereignty  of  the  seas ;  its  internal  resources  were 
developed,  the  ascendency  of  its  arts,  its  fashions,  and  its 


LECTURE    III.  159 

literature,  was  universal.  Yet  this  fourth  alarm  of  univer- 
sal dominion  passed  away  like  those  which  had  preceded  it. 
And  here  the  resisting  power  was  England,  which  now  for 
tne  first  time  since  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  took  an  active 
part  in  the  affairs  of  Europe.  This  change  was  effected  by 
the  accession  of  William  the  Third,  the  stadtholder  of  Hol- 
land and  the  great  antagonist  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  to 
the  throne  of  England ;  and  by  the  strong  national,  and  reli- 
gious, and  political  feeling  against  France  which  possessed 
the  English  people.  William  checked  the  power  of  Louis 
the  Fourteenth,  Marlborough  and  Eugene  overthrew  it. 
Oppressed  by  defeats  abroad,  and  by  famine  and  misery  at 
home,  Louis  was  laid  at  the  mercy  of  his  enemies,  and  was 
only  saved  by  a  party  revolution  in  the  English  ministry. 
But  the  peace  of  Utrecht  in  1713,  although  it  sanctioned  the 
succession  of  the  French  prince  Philip,  grandson  of  king 
Louis,  to  the  throne  of  Spain,  yet  by  its  other  stipulations, 
and  still  more  by  the  weakness  which  made  France  accept 
it,  showed  sufficiently  that  all  danger  of  French  dominion 
was  effectually  overpast.  (2) 

Then  followed  a  period  of  nearly  ninety  years,  during 
which  the  external  order  of  Europe  was  not  materially 
threatened.  Had  Frederic  the  Second  of  Prussia  possessed 
greater  physical  resources,  his  personal  qualities  and  dispo- 
sitions might  have  made  him  the  most  formidable  of  conquer- 
ors ;  but  as  it  was,  his  extraordinary  efforts  were  essentially 
defensive ;  it  was  his  glory  at  the  end  of  the  Seven  Years' 
War  that  Prussia  was  not  overwhelmed,  that  it  had  shattered 
the  mighty  confederacy  which  had  assailed  it,  and  that  hav- 
ing ridden  out  the  storm,  the  fiery  trial  left  it  with  confirmed 
and  proved  strength,  and  protected  besides  by  the  shield  of 
its  glory.  (3)  England  alone,  by  her  great  colonial  and  na. 
val  successes  in  the  war  of  1755,  and  by  the  high  preten- 
sions of  her  naval  code,  excited  during  this  period  the  jeal- 


160  LECTURE    III. 

ousy  of  Europe  ;  and  thus  not  only  France  and  Spain,  bui 
her  old  ally  Holland,  took  part  against  her  in  the  American 
war,  and  the  northern  powers  showed  that  their  disposition 
was  equally  unfriendly,  by  agreeing  together  in  their  armed 
neutrality.  But  in  the  loss  of  America,  England  seemed  to 
have  paid  a  sufficient  penalty,  and  the  spirit  of  jealousy  and 
hostility  against  her  did  not  appear  to  survive  the  conclusion 
of  the  peace  of  Paris  in  1783. 

Ten  years  afterwards  there  broke  out  by  far  the  most 
alarming  danger  of  universal  dominion,  which  had  ever 
threatened  Europe.  The  most  military  people  in  Europe 
became  engaged  in  a  war  for  their  very  existence.  Inva- 
sion on  the  frontiers,  civil  war  and  all  imaginable  horrors 
raging  within,  the  ordinary  relations  of  life  went  to  wrack, 
and  every  Frenchman  became  a  soldier.  It  was  a  multitude 
numerous  as  the  hosts  of  Persia,  but  animated  by  the  cour- 
age and  skill  and  energy  of  the  old  Romans.  One  thing 
alone  was  wanting,  that  which  Pyrrhus  said  the  Romans 
wanted,  to  enable  them  to  conquer  the  world,  a  general  and 
a  ruler  like  himself.  There  was  wanted  a  master  hand  to 
restore  and  maintain  peace  at  home,  and  to  concentrate  and 
direct  the  immense  military  resources  of  France  against  her 
foreign  enemies.  And  such  a  one  appeared  in  Napoleon. 
Pacifying  La  Vendee,  receiving  back  the  emigrants,  restoring 
toe  church,  remodelling  the  law,  personally  absolute,  yet 
carefully  preserving  and  maintaining  all  the  great  points 
which  the  nation  had  won  at  the  revolution,  Napoleon  uni- 
ted in  himself  not  only  the  power  but  the  whole  will  of 
France,  and  that  power  and  will  were  guided  by  a  genius 
for  war  such  as  Europe  had  never  seen  since  Caesar.  The 
effect  was  absolutely  magical.  In  November,  1799,  he  was 
made  First  Consul ;  he  found  France  humbled  by  defeats, 
his  Italian  conquests  lost,  his  allies  invaded,  his  own  frontiei 
threatened.  He  took  the  field  in  May,  1800,  and  in  June  the 


LECTURE    III.  161 

whole  fortune  of  the  war  was  changed,  and  Austria  driven 
out  of  Lombardy  by  the  victory  of  Marengo.  Still  the  flood 
of  the  tide  rose  higher  and  higher,  and  every  successive 
wave  of  its  advance  swept  away  a  kingdom.  Earthly  state 
has  never  reached  a  prouder  pinnacle,  than  when  Napoleon 
in  June,  1812,  gathered  his  army  at  Dresden,  that  mighty 
host,  unequalled  in  all  time,  of  450,000,  not  men  merely  but 
effective  soldiers,  and  there  received  the  homage  of  subject 
kings.  And  now  what  was  the  principal  adversary  of  this 
tremendous  power  ?  by  whom  was  it  checked,  and  resisted, 
and  put  down  ?  By  none,  and  by  nothing,  but  the  direct  and 
manifest  interposition  of  God.  I  know  of  no  language  so 
well  fitted  to  describe  that  victorious  advance  to  Moscow, 
and  the  utter  humiliation  of  the  retreat,  as  the  language  of 
the  prophet  with  respect  to  the  advance  and  subsequent  de- 
struction of  the  host  of  Sennacherib.  "  When  they  arose 
early  in  the  morning,  behold  they  were  all  dead  corpses," 
applies  almost  literally  to  that  memorable  night  of  frost  in 
which  twenty  thousand  horses  perished,  and  the  strength  of 
the  French  army  was  utterly  broken.  Human  instruments 
no  doubt  were  employed  in  the  remainder  of  the  work,  nor 
would  I  deny  to  Germany  and  to  Prussia  the  glories  of  that 
great  year  1813,  nor  to  England  the  honour  of  her  victories 
in  Spain,  or  of  the  crowning  victory  of  Waterloo.  But  at 
the  distance  of  thirty  years,  those  who  lived  in  the  time  of 
danger,  and  remember  its  magnitude,  and  now  calmly  re- 
view what  there  was  in  human  strength  to  avert  it,  must  ac- 
knowledge, I  think,  beyond  all  controversy,  that  the  deliver- 
ance of  Europe  from  the  dominion  of  Napoleon  was  effected 
neither  by  Russia,  nor  by  Germany,  nor  by  England,  but  by 
the  hand  of  God  alone.  (4) 

What  I  have  now  been  noticing  will  afford  one  division 
which  may  be  convenient  for  the  student  of  modern  history ; 
one  division,  out  of  many  which  might  be  made,  and  purely 

14* 


162  LECTURE    III. 

an  external  one.  But  for  this  purpose  it  may  be  useful,  just 
as  we  sometimes  divide  Grecian  history  into  the  periods  of 
the  Lacedaemonian,  the  Athenian,  the  Theban,  and  the  Mace- 
donian ascendency.  It  shows  us  how  the  centre  of  external 
movement  has  varied,  round  what  point  the  hopes  and  fears 
of  Europe  have  been  successively  busy,  so  far  as  concerns 
external  dominion.  You  will  observe,  however,  how  strictly 
I  have  confined  myself  to  the  outward  and  merely  territorial 
struggle ;  how  entirely  I  have  omitted  all  those  other  and 
deeper  points  which  are  in  connection  with  the  principles  of 
internal  life.  I  have  regarded  Austria,  Spain,  and  France 
purely  in  one  and  the  same  light ;  that  is,  as  national  bodies 
occupying  a  certain  space  on  the  map  of  Europe,  and  en- 
deavoring to  spread  themselves  beyond  this  space,  and  so 
deranging  the  position  of  those  other  national  bodies  which 
existed  in  their  neighbourhood.  You  know  that  this  is  a  very 
imperfect  representation  of  the  great  contests  of  Europe. 
You  know  that  Austria  and  Spain  in  the  sixteenth  and  seven- 
teenth centuries  were  not  merely  two  nations  governed  by 
the  same  sovereign,  or  by  sovereigns  closely  allied  together, 
and  which  sought  their  own  aggrandizement  at  the  expense 
of  their  neighbours.  They  were  a  great  deal  more  than 
this ;  they  were  the  representatives,  not  purely  but  in  a  great 
measure,  of  certain  political  and  religious  principles ;  and 
the  triumph  of  these  principles  was  involved  in  their  territo- 
( rial  conquests.  So  again,  the  resistance  to  them  was  in  part 
also  the  resistance  of  the  opposite  principles ;  in  part,  but  by 
no  means  purely.  It  is  worth  our  while  to  observe  this,  as 
one  instance  out  of  thousands,  how  little  any  real  history  is 
an  exact  exemplification  of  abstract  principles ;  how  our 
generalizations — which  must  indeed  be  made,  for  so  alone 
can  history  furnish  us  with  any  truths — must  yet  be  kept 
within  certain  limits,  or  they  become  full  of  error.  Thus, 
for  instance,  it  is  quite  true  to  say  that  the  struggle  against 


LECTURE    III.  163 

Austria  and  Spain  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries 
was  not  a  mere  resistance  against  territorial  aggression  : 
there  were  principles  involved  in  the  contest.  Yet  all  con- 
cerned  in  this  resistance  did  not  feel  it  to  be  a  contest  of 
principle :  France  under  Francis  the  First  and  Henry  the 
Second,  and  again  under  Henry  the  Fourth,  and  lastly  under 
Louis  the  Thirteenth,  or  rather  under  Richelieu,  was  most 
deeply  engaged  in  the  resistance  to  Austria  and  Spain ;  yet 
certainly  the  French  government  at  no  one  time  was  con- 
tending either  for  Christian  truth  or  for  civil  freedom.  With 
France  it  was  a  purely  territorial  and  external  contest  j  and 
this  was  well  shown  by  the  conduct  of  Francis  the  First, 
who  burnt  French  protestants  at  Paris,  while  he  was  allying 
himself  with  the  protestants  of  Germany  ;  who  opposed,  ac- 
cidentally indeed,  the  papal  power  and  cause,  but  who  did 
not  scruple  to  form  a  league  with  the  Turks.  So  again,  in 
the  Thirty  Years'  War,  that  very  Richelieu  who  mainly 
contributed  to  the  establishment  of  protestantism  in  Germany 
on  a  perfectly  equal  footing  by  the  treaty  of  Westphalia,  was 
the  very  man  who  threw  his  mole  across  the  harbour  of 
Rochelle,  and  conquered  the  great  stronghold  of  protestantism 
in  France. 

These  external  movements,  then,  as  we  have  now  been 
contemplating  them,  involve  no  questions  of  political  or  re- 
ligious principle.  We  may  conceive  of  them  as  of  a  mere 
game  of  chess,  where  the  pieces  and  pawns  on  both  sides 
differ  from  each  other  only  in  being  played  from  a  different 
part  of  the  board.  What  we  have  to  consider  in  these  con- 
tests are  mostly  economical  questions  and  military  :  the  purse 
and  the  sword  were  the  powers  which  decided  them.  But  is 
the  study  of  such  questions  indifferent  to  us  ?  That  surely 
it  were  most  unwise  to  imagine.  For  in  the  first  place, 
these  very  contests  which  we  are  now  regarding  as  purely 
external,  were  really  as  we  have  seen  contests  of  principle 


164  LECTURE    III. 

also ;  and  thus  the  economical  and  military  skill  which  de- 
termined  their  issue,  were  in  fact  the  means  by  which  cer- 
tain principles  were  attacked  or  defended.  Besides,  economy 
and  military  virtues  are  the  great  supports  of  national  exist- 
ence, as  food  and  exercise  support  our  individual  bodies.  I 
grant  that  the  existence  so  supported  may  be  worthless,  may 
be  sinful :  yet  self-preservation  is  an  essential  condition  of 
all  virtue ;  in  order  to  do  their  duty  both  states  and  individ- 
uals must  first  live  and  be  kept  alive.  But  more  than  all 
this,  economical  and  military  questions  are  not  purely  exter- 
nal ;  they  are  connected  closely  with  moral  good  and  evil ; 
^—  a  faulty  political  economy  is  the  fruitful  parent  of  crime ;  a 
sound  military  system  is  no  mean  school  of  virtue ;  and  war, 
as  I  have  said  before,  has  in  its  vicissitudes,  and  much  more 
in  the  moral  qualities  which  it  calls  into  action,  a  deep  and 
abiding  interest  fo'r  every  one  worthy  of  the  name  of  man. 

Economical  questions  arise  obviously  out  of  the  history  of 
all  wars,  although  careless  readers  are  very  apt  to  neglect 
them.  They  arise  out  of  that  simple  law  of  our  nature 
which  makes  it  necessary  for  every  man  to  eat  and  drink 
and  be  clothed.  Common  readers,  and  I  am  afraid  I  may 
add,  many  historians  also,  appear  to  write  and  read  about 
military  operations  without  recollecting  this.  We  hear  of 
armies  marching,  advancing,  and  retreating,  besieging  towns, 
fighting  battles,  being  engaged  actively  for  some  weeks  or 
months,  and  are  apt  to  think  of  them  solely  as  moving  or 
fighting  machines,  whose  success  depends  on  the  skill  with 
which  their  general  plays  them,  as  if  they  were  really  so 
many  chess-men.  Yet  one  would  think  it  was  sufficiently 
obvious  that  these  armies  are  made  up  of  men  who  must  eat 
and  drink  every  day,  and  who  wear  clothing.  Of  the  expense 
and  difficulty  of  maintaining  them  it  is  not  easy,  I  grant, 
for  private  persons  in  peace  to  form  any  adequate  idea.  (5) 
Yet  here  we  may  gain  something  more  of  a  notion  of  it  than 


LECTURE    III.  165 

can  be  obtained  readily  in  a  private  family.  A  college  will 
contain  perhaps  seventy  or  eighty  members ;  let  any  man 
but  look  round  the  hall  at  dinner;  or  let  him  go  into  the 
kitchen  and  see  the  number  of  joints  at  the  fire,  or  let  him 
ask  the  number  of  pounds  of  meat  required  for  the  daily  con- 
sumption  of  the  college,  and  see  what  the  cost  will  amount 
to.  Then  he  may  think  what  it  is  to  provide  for  the  food, 
not  of  eighty  or  of  ninety  persons,  but  of  twenty,  or  of  forty, 
or  of  sixty,  or  even  of  a  hundred  thousand.  All  this  multi- 
tude doing  nothing  to  raise  food  or  make  clothing  for  them- 
selves, must  be  fed  and  clothed  out  of  the  wealth  of  the 
community.  Again  this  community  may  have  to  maintain, 
not  one  of  these  armies  but  several,  and  large  fleets  besides, 
and  this  for  many  years  together ;  while  it  may  often  happen 
that  its  means  of  doing  so  are  at  the  same  time  crippled :  its 
foreign  trade  may  be  cut  off,  or  large  portions  of  its  territory 
may  be  laid  waste ;  while  the  event  of  the  contest  being  un- 
certain, and  defeat  and  ruin  being  a  possible  consequence  of 
it,  hope  and  confidence  are  checked,  and  with  them  credit 
perishes  also.  Is  it  then  a  light  matter  first  to  provide  the 
necessary  resources  for  such  a  contest,  and  next  to  see  that 
they  are  not  spent  waste  fully  ?  With  regard  to  providing 
them,  there  is  first  the  great  question  between  direct  taxation 
and  loans.  Shall  we  lay  the  whole  burden  of  the  contest 
upon  the  present  generation,  or  divide  it  between  ourselves 
and  posterity  ?  Conceive  now  the  difficulties,  the  exceeding 
temptations,  which  beset  the  decision  of  this  question.  In  a 
free  government  it  may  be  doubtful  whether  the  people  will 
consent  to  raise  the  money  or  no.  But  suppose  that  legally 
they  have  no  voice  in  the  matter,  that  the  government  may 
lay  on  what  taxes  it  will ;  still  extreme  discontent  at  home 
is  not  likely  to  be  risked  in  the  midst  of  foreign  war ;  or  if 
the  people  are  willing  to  bear  the  burden  still  the  power  may 
be  wanting.  A  tax  may  easily  destroy  itself:  that  is,  sup- 


166  LECTURE    III. 

pose  that  a  man's  trade  just  yields  him  a  profit  which  he  can 
live  upon,  and  a  tax  is  laid  upon  him  to  the  amount  of  a 
fourth  part  of  his  profit.  If  he  raises  the  price  of  his  com- 
modity to  the  consumer,  the  consumer  will  either  purchase 
so  much  the  less  of  it,  or  will  endeavour  to  procure  it  from 
other  countries  where  the  dealer  being  less  heavily  taxed  can 
afford  to  sell  on  cheaper  terms.  Then  the  government  inter- 
poses to  protect  the  taxed  native  dealer  by  prohibiting  the 
importation  of  the  commodity  of  the  untaxed  foreigner.  But 
such  a  prohibition  running  counter  to  a  plain  rule  of  common 
sense,  which  makes  every  man  desire  to  buy  a  cheaper  article 
rather  than  a  dearer,  when  both  are  of  equal  goodness,  it  can 
only  be  maintained  by  force.  Thence  arises  the  necessity  of  a 
large  constabulary  or  preventive  force  to  put  down  smuggling, 
and,  to  say  nothing  of  the  moral  evils  produced  by  such  a 
state  of  things,  it  is  clear  that  the  expense  of  the  additional 
preventive  force  which  the  new  tax  rendered  necessary,  is 
all  to  be  deducted  from  the  profits  of  that  tax  ;  and  this  de. 
duction,  added  to  the  falling  of}'  in  its  productiveness  occa- 
sioned by  the  greater  poverty  of  the  tax-payer,  may  reduce 
its  return  almost  to  nothing.  Suppose  then  that  a  statesman, 
appalled  by  all  these  difficulties,  resolves  to  share  the  burden 
with  posterity,  and  begins  to  raise  money  by  loans.  No 
doubt  for  the  present  his  work  is  greatly  facilitated ;  instead 
of  providing  for  the  principal  of  the  money  which  he  wants, 
he  has  only  to  provide  for  the  interest  of  it.  But  observe 
what  follows.  In  the  first  place,  by  an  almost  universal  law 
of  our  nature,  money  lightly  gained  is  lightly  spent :  a  reve- 
nue raised  at  the  expense  of  posterity  is  sure  to  be  squandered 
Wastefully.  Waste  as  usual  begetting  want,  the  sums  raised 
by  loans  will  commonly  be  large.  Now  these  large  sums 
are  a  mortgage  on  all  the  property,  on  all  the  industry,  on 
all  the  skill  and  ability  of  a  country  forever.  Every  acre 
of  land  from  henceforth  has  not  only  to  maintain  its  owner 


LECTURE    III.  167 

id  his  family,  and  to  answer  the  just  demands  of  the  actual 
public  service,  but  it  has  also  to  feed  one  or  more  extraneous 
persons  besides,  the  state's  creditors  or  their  heirs,  who  in 
times  past  lent  it  their  money.  Every  man  who  would  have 
laboured  twelve  hours  for  the  support  of  his  family  and  the 
public  service  of  his  own  generation,  must  labour  one  or  two 
hours  in  addition,  for  the  support  of  a  stranger,  the  state's 
creditor.  So  with  all  its  property,  with  all  its  industry,  with 
all  its  powers  thus  burdened,  thus  strained  to  the  very  ex- 
tremity of  endurance,  the  nation  is  committed  to  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  all  coming  time,  to  run  in  the  race  with  other  nations 
who  are  in  the  full  freshness  of  their  unstrained  strength ;  to 
battle  with  occasional  storms  which  would  try  the  lightest 
and  stoutest  vessel,  but  in  which  one  already  overloaded  till 
the  timbers  are  well  nigh  starting,  must  necessarily  expect  to 
founder. 

Such  then  being  the  financial  or  economical  difficulties  be- 
setting every  great  contest,  it  is  no  mean  wisdom  to  avoid 
them  as  far  as  is  possible ;  to  make  the  people  so  keenly 
enter  into  the  necessity  of  the  contest  that  they  will  make 
real  sacrifices  to  maintain  it ;  so  to  choose  the  subjects  of 
taxation,  and  so  to  distribute  its  burden,  as  to  make  it  press 
with  the  least  possible  severity,  neither  seriously  impairing  a 
people's  resources,  nor  irritating  their  feelings  by  a  sense  of 
its  inequality.  If  a  statesman  after  all  finds  that  he  must 
borrow — and  I  am  far  from  denying  that  such  a  necessity 
has  sometimes  existed — it  is  no  mean  administrative  wisdom 
to  enforce  the  strictest  economy  in  his  expenditure ;  rigor- 
ously  to  put  down  and  punish  all  jobbing,  whether  in  high 
quarters  or  in  low,  but  more  especially  in  the  former;  te 
resist  the  fatal  temptation  of  having  frequent  recourse  to  an 
expedient  promising  present  ease  and  only  threatening  future 
ruin ;  and  to  keep  his  eye  steadily  upon  the  payment  within 
a  definite  time  of  the  sums  which  he  is  obliged  to  borrow. 


168  LECTURE   III. 

That  this  is  a  most  rare  and  high  wisdom  we  shall  learn 
from  history,  by  seeing  the  fatal  consequences  of  the  opposite 
follies :  consequences  wide,  and  deep,  and  lasting ;  and  af- 
fecting not  only  a  nation's  physical  welfare,  but  through  it 
surely  and  fatally  corrupting  its  higher  welfare  also. 

One  example  of  this  sad  truth  may  be  taken  from  a  for- 
eign history;  the  other  which  I  shall  give  affects  us  yet 
more  closely.  We  know  in  how  many  wars  France  was 
engaged  throughout  the  eighteenth  century.  We  know  that 
in  the  Seven  Years'  War  her  efforts  were  great  and  her  de- 
feats overwhelming,  while  her  government  was  in  the  highest 
degree  wasteful  and  unequal  in  its  dealings  towards  the  dif- 
ferent classes  of  society.  We  know  that  about  fifteen  years 
afterwards  France  again  engaged  in  our  American  war,  and 
supported  a  very  expensive  contest,  still  aggravated  as  before 
by  wastefulness,  corruption,  and  injustice  at  home,  for  the  space 
of  five  years.  A  general  embarrassment  in  the  finances  was 
the  consequence,  and  this  brought  the  old  and  inveterate  evils 
of  the  political  and  social  state  of  France  to  a  head.  Both 
together  led,  not  to  the  revolution,  but  to  those  tremendous 
disorders  which  accompanied  and  followed  the  revolution ; 
disorders  quite  distinct  from  it,  and  which  were  owing  mainly 
to  the  extremely  unhealthy  state  of  the  social  relations  in 
France,  to  which  unhealthy  state  wide-spreading  distress, 
brought  on  by  a  most  unequal  and  corrupt  system  of  taxation, 
had  largely  contributed. 

The  other,  and  unhappily  the  nearer  instance,  is  yet  even 
more  significant.  Whatever  distress  or  difficulty  at  this 
moment  surrounds  us,  has  its  source  in  a  very  great  degree 
in  financial  or  economical  causes.  Of  course  I  am  not  going 
to  offer  any  opinion  as  to  the  present  or  future  ;  I  am  merely 
referring  to  what  is  an  historical  fact  belonging  to  the  past. 
It  is  a  fact  beyond  all  controversy  that  the  wars  of  the  last 
century,  and  particularly  that  great  war  which  raged  during 


LECTURE    III.  169 

the  first  fifteen  years  of  the  present  century,  were  supported 
largely  by  loans ;  it  is  no  less  certain  a  fact  that  of  the  debt 
thus  contracted  a  sum  amounting  to  above  £700,000,000  is 
still  unpaid,  and  that  more  than  half  of  our  yearly  revenue, 
to  say  the  least,  is  appropriated  to  paying  the  interest  of  it. 
That  such  a  burden  must  be  too  much  for  the  resources  or 
industry  of  any 'country  to  bear  without  injury,  would  seem 
to  be  a  proposition  absolutely  self-evident.  Every  interest 
in  the  country  is  subject  to  unfair  disadvantages  in  the  com- 
petition with  foreigners  ;  every  interest  being  heavily  taxed 
is  either  unable,  or  able  only  by  the  most  extraordinary  ex- 
ertions, to  sustain  itself  in  the  market  of  the  world  against 
untaxed  or  lightly  taxed  rivals.  Now  the  evils  being  enor- 
mous, and  so  far  as  we  can  see  perpetual,  it  does  become  an 
important  question  to  ask,  whether  they  were  also  inevitable  ? 
that  is  to  say,  whether,  if  the  same  circumstances  were  to 
occur  again,  which  is  a  matter  not  within  our  control,  we 
should  have  no  choice  but  to  adopt  the  very  same  financial 
expedients.  It  may  be  that  the  sums  raised,  and  nothing 
less,  were  required  by  the  urgency  of  the  crisis ;  it  may  be  that 
no  larger  portion  of  them  could  have  been  raised  by  present 
taxation  than  was  so  raised  actually ;  it  may  be  that  nothing 
more  could  have  been  done  to  liquidate  the  debt  when  con- 
tracted than  has  been  done  actually.  But  where  the  meas- 
ures adopted  have  been  so  ruinous,  we  must  at  least  be  dis- 
posed to  hope  that  they  might  have  been  avoided ;  that  here, 
as  in  so  many  other  instances,  the  fault  rests  not  with  fortune 
or  with  outward  circumstances,  but  with  human  passion  and 
numan  error. 

Such  is  the  importance  and  such  the  interest  of  the  econom- 
ical questions  which  arise  out  of  the  history  of  the  great  ex- 
ternal contests  of  modern  Europe.  The  military  questions 
connected  with  the  same  history,  will  form  our  next  subject 
of  inquiry ;  and  on  this  I  propose  to  enter  in  my  next  lecture. 

15 


NOTES 

TO 

LECTURE     III 


NOTE  1.— Page  154. 

In  the  Preface  to  the  posthumous  volume  (vol.  iii.)  of  the  His- 
tory of  Rome,  Archdeacon  J.  C.  Hare,  by  whom  it  was  edited,  speaka 
of  "  the  most  remarkable  among  Dr.  Arnold's  talents,  his  singular 
geographical  eye,  which  enabled  him  to  find  as  much  pleasure  in 
looking  at  a  map,  as  lovers  of  painting  in  a  picture  by  Raphael  or 
Claude."  (p.  viii.) 

It  may  not,  perhaps,  be  inappropriate  here  to  direct  attention  to 
the  raised  maps  as  a  new  facility  for  the  accurate  study  of  geogra- 
phy, especially  of  mountainous  regions  :  they  give  a  notion,  which 
it  would  be  difficult  to  gain  from  the  ordinary  maps,  of  the  compli- 
cated inequalities  of  Italy  or  Spain,  for  instance. 

NOTE  2. — Page  15y. 

"  Few  events  in  modern  times  ever  seemed  so  unfavourable  to 
the  balance  of  power  as  the  union  between  the  French  and  Spanish 
monarchies.  The  former,  already  too  mighty  from  her  increased 
dominions,  her  central  situation,  and  her  warlike  and  enterprising 
people,  could  now  direct  the  resources  of  that  very  state  which  had 
formerly  weighed  the  heaviest  in  the  opposite  scale.  By  her  pro- 
gressive encroachments  most  other  states  had  been  struck  with 
dismay,  not  roused  into  resistance,  and  seemed  more  inclined  to 
sue  for  her  alliance  than  to  dare  her  enmity.  But  happily  for  Eu- 
rope, the  throne  of  England  at  this  period  was  filled  by  a  prince  of 
singular  ability  both  in  the  council  and  the  field.  The  first  endeav- 
ours of  William  III  to  oppose  the  succession  of  Philip,  and  from  a 


NOTES    TO    LECTURE    III.  171 

confederacy  against  France,  had  been  thwarted  as  much  by  his 
parliament  as  by  foreign  powers,  and  he  had  prudently  yielded  to 
the  tide,  but  foresaw  and  awaited  its  ebbing.  He  continued  to  keep 
his  objects  steadily  in  sight,  and  even  their  ostensible  relinquish- 
ment  was  only  one  of  his  methods  to  promote  them.  By  acknow- 
ledging the  new  king  of  Spain,  and  professing  great  desire  for 
peace,  he  disarmed  the  French  government  of  its  caution,  and  led 
it  to  disclose  more  and  more  its  ambitious  and  grasping  designs. 

"  Nor  were  these  long  delayed.  Within  a  few  months  Louis 
XIV.  began  to  claim  the  privileges  of  the  South  American  trade, 
struck  several  blows  at  British  commerce,  supplanted  the  Dutch  in 
the  Spanish  ASIENTO,  or  contract  for  negroes,  raised  new  works  in 
the  Flemish  fortresses  within  sight  of  their  frontier,  and  both  in- 
creased and  assembled  his  armies.  Such  conduct  could  not  fail  to 
provoke  most  highly  the  nations  thus  aggrieved ;  and  the  public  in- 
dignation, improved  by  William  to  the  best  advantage,  gradually  grew 
into  a  cry  for  war.  The  rising  discontent  in  Spain  was  another 
circumstance  auspicious  to  his  views.  He  spared  no  labor,  no  ex- 
ertion ;  he  went  in  person  to  the  Hague,  where  he  carried  on  the 
most  active  and  able  negotiations,  foiled  all  the  counter-intrigues 
of  Louis,  and  at  length  succeeded  in  concluding  the  basis  of  the 
*  Grand  Alliance'  between  England,  Austria,  and  the  States  Gene- 
ral, (Sept.  1701.)  The  public  mind  being  yet  scarcely  ripe  for  the 
decisive  principles  afterwards  avowed  and  acted  on,  this  treaty  was 
very  guarded  in  its  phrases,  and  confined  in  its  extent.  The  rights 
of  the  Archduke  Charles  were  not  yet  asserted,  nor  those  of  Philip 
denied  ;  and  the  chief  objects  of  the  contracting  parties  seemed  to 
be,  that  France  might  not  retain  its  footing  in  the  Netherlands,  nor 
acquire  any  in  the  West  Indies ;  and  that  its  crown  and  that  of 
Spain  might  never  be  united  on  the  same  head." 

LORD  MAHON'S  *  Hist,  of  the  War  of  the  Succession  in  Spain,* 

chap,  ii.,  p.  41. 

*  *  *  "France  was  now  (1711)  so  much  weakened,  and  so 
nearly  overwhelmed,  by  the  contest,  that  it  seemed  not  only  possi- 
ble, but  easy  to  reduce  her  overgrown  possessions.  Her  fortresses 
taken — her  frontiers  laid  bare — her  armies  almost  annihilated — her 
generals  disheartened  and  distrusted — her  finances  exhausted — her 


172  NOTES 

people  starving,  she  could  no  longer  have  defended  the  successive 
usurpations  heaped  up  during  the  last  half  century  ;  and  a  barrier 
against  their  recurrence  might  now  have  been  concerted,  estab- 
lished, and  maintained.  It  only  remained  for  the  allies  to  crown  a 
glorious  war  by  a  triumphant  peace.  But  all  this  fair  prospect  was 
overcast  and  darkened  by  a  change  in  the  government,  and  there- 
fore in  the  policy,  of  England.  Queen  Anne,  since  the  deaths  of 
her  only  child  and  of  her  husband,  had  nourished  a  secret  leaning 
to  her  exiled  family,  and  maintained  the  Duke  of  Marlborough  and 
his  party  more  from  their  successes  than  her  inclinations.  The 
Duchess  of  Marlborough  had,  indeed,  great  influence  over  her  ma- 
jesty, and  ruled  her  by  the  strong  chains  of  habit ;  but  gradually 
lost  her  ascendency  by  her  own  violent  and  overbearing  temper, 
and  especially  her  haughty  jealousy  of  Mrs.  Masham,  a  dependant 
cousin,  whom  she  had  placed  about  the  Queen  as  a  bedchamber 
woman,  and  whom  she  unexpectedly  found  distinguished  by  several 
marks  of  royal  regard.  A  glass  of  water,  thrown  by  the  Duchess 
on  the  gown  of  Mrs.  Masham,  changed  the  destinies  of  Europe. 
An  humble  relation  was  transformed  into  an  aspiring  rival ;  and  the 
Queen,  quite  estranged  from  her  former  favourite,  carried  her  fond- 
ness from  the  person  to  the  politics  of  her  new  one.  Thus  she  feli 
into  the  hands  of  the  Tories,  then  guided  mainly  by  the  subtle  ca- 
bals of  Harley,  and  the  splendid  genius  of  St.  John.  They  did 
not  venture  to  assail  at  once  the  recent  services  and  deeply-rooted 
reputation  of  Marlborough,  and  thought  it  safer  to  undermine  than 
to  overthrow.  He  was  induced  to  retain  the  command  of  the 
army;  and  the  existing  administration  was  broken  only  by  degrees. 
In  June  (1710)  fell  the  Earl  of  Sunderland,  the  Foreign  Secretary  ; 
in  August  the  Lord  Treasurer  Godolphin ;  and  the  rest  followed  in 
succession.  By  some  the  seals  of  office  were  resigned,  from  others 
they  were  wrested  ;  and  before  the  close  of  the  year,  the  Tories 
were  completely  and  triumphantly  installed  in  the  place  of  the 

Whigs " 

Id.,  chap.  ix.  p.  347. 

After  stating  the  result  of  the  negotiations  between  England  and 
France,  Lord  Mahon  adds — 

"  Such,  in  a  very  few  words,  is  the  substance  of  the  celebrated 
peace  of  Utrecht,  which  has  always  been  considered  a  blot  on  the 


TO    LECTURE    III.  173 

bright  annals  of  England ;  and  which  one  of  her  greatest  states- 
men, Lord  Chatham,  has  pronounced  '  the  indelible  reproach  of  the 
last  generation.'  We  may,  however,  be  allowed  to  think,  that 
whilst  the  glory  of  the  war  belongs  to  the  whole  people, — whilst 
Blenheim  and  Ramillies  were  prepared  by  British  treasure,  and 
won  by  British  skill  and  British  bravery,  the  disgrace  of  the 
peace,  that  low  and  unworthy  result  of  such  great  achievements, 
should  rest  on  only  a  small  knot  of  factious  partisans.  Let  it  rest, 
above  all,  on  Lord  Bolingbroke ;  whose  genius,  splendid  as  it  was, 
seldom  worked  but  for  evil  either  in  philosophy  or  politics." 

Id.,  chap.  ix.  p.  370. 

*  *  *  "  It  is  impossible,"  says  Mr.  Hallam,  "  to  justify  the 
course  of  that  negotiation  which  ended  in  the  peace  of  Utrecht. 
It  was  at  best  a  dangerous  and  inauspicious  concession,  demanding 
every  compensation  that  could  be  devised,  and  which  the  circum- 
stances of  the  war  entitled  us  to  require.  France  was  still  our 
formidable  enemy ;  the  ambition  of  Louis  was  still  to  be  dreaded, 
his  intrigues  to  be  suspected.  That  an  English  minister  should 
have  thrown  himself  into  the  arms  of  this  enemy  at  the  first  over- 
ture of  negotiation ;  that  he  should  have  renounced  advantages 
upon  which  he  might  have  insisted ;  that  he  should  have  restored 
Lille,  and  almost  attempted  to  procure  the  sacrifice  of  Tournay ; 
that  throughout  the  whole  correspondence,  and  in  all  personal  in- 
terviews with  Torcy,  he  should  have  shown  the  triumphant  Queen 
of  Great  Britain  more  eager  for  peace  than  her  vanquished  adver- 
sary ;  that  the  two  courts  should  have  been  virtually  conspiring 
against  those  allies,  without  whom  we  had  bound  ourselves  to  enter 
on  no  treaty ;  that  we  should  have  withdrawn  our  troops  in  the 
midst  of  a  campaign,  and  even  seized  upon  the  towns  of  our  con- 
federates while  we  left  them  exposed  to  be  overcome  by  a  superior 
force  ;  that  we  should  have  first  deceived  those  confederates  by  the 
most  direct  falsehood  in  denying  our  clandestine  treaty,  and  then 
dictated  to  them  its  acceptance,  are  facts  so  disgraceful  to  Boling- 
broke, and  in  somewhat  a  less  degree  to  Oxford,  that  they  can 
hardly  be  palliated  by  establishing  the  expediency  of  the  treaty 

itself." 

Constit.  Hist,  of  England,  chap.  xvi.  vol.  iii.  p.  294 

15* 


174  NOTES 


NOTE  3.— Page  159. 

The  Peace  of  Hubertsburg,  between  the  King  of  Prussia  and 
Maria  Theresa,  being  signed  on  the  15th  of  February,  1763 — "  Six 
weeks  afterwards  Frederick  made  a  public  entry  into  his  capital, 
which  he  had  not  seen  for  six  years ;  he  sat  in  an  open  carriage 
with  Prince  Ferdinand  of  Brunswick  at  his  side,  and  the  people  of 
Berlin,  thinned  as  they  were  in  numbers,  and  well  nigh  ruined  in 
fortunes,  by  the  long-protracted  war,  greeted  with  enthusiastic 
shouts  the  heroes  of  their  country.  Never  had  any  sovereign 
waged  so  arduous  a  contest  with  more  undeviating  spirit  or  more 
varying  success.  Of  ten  pitched  battles  where  he  commanded  in 
person,  he  had  been  worsted  in  three,  and  victorious  in  seven.  Of 
six  where  other  chiefs  directed  the  Prussian  armies,  every  one, 
except  only  Prince  Henry's  at  Freyberg,  had  been  a  defeat.  Ac- 
cording to  Frederick's  own  computation,  he  had  lost  in  these  terri- 
ble seven  years  180,000  soldiers,  while  of  Russians  there  had  fallen 
120,000,  of  Austrians  140,000,  and  of  French  200,000.  But  such 
numbers,  vast  as  they  seem,  give  a  most  inadequate  idea  of  all  the 
misery,  desolation,  and  havoc  which  this  warfare  had  wrought. 
Pestilence  had  swept  away  many  peaceful  thousands ;  whole  dis- 
tricts, especially  in  Brandenburg  and  Pomeraniay  were  turned  to 
wastes  ;  all  the  best  dwellings  laid  in  ashes ;  the  very  seed-corn  in 
part  devoured,  and  none  but  women  and  children  left  to  follow  the 
plough !  An  officer  reports  that  he  rode  through  seven  villages  of 
Hesse  in  which  he  found  only  one  single  human  being ;  a  clergy- 
man who  was  boiling  horse-beans  for  his  dinner !  But  no  dan- 
gers could  vanquish,  no  sufferings  exhaust,  the  patriotic  spirit  of 
the  Prussians.  Seeing  the  independence  of  their  country  at  stake, 
they  scarcely  even  murmured  or  complained ;  they  showed  them- 
selves ready  in  such  a  cause  to  encounter  the  worst  perils  with 
unshrinking  courage,  and  endure  the  worst  hardships  with  mag 
nanimous  patience.  I  have  always  thought  their  conduct  as  a 
people,  during  the  two  appalling  struggles  of  1756  and  1813,  de- 
serving of  the  highest  admiration.  From  other  countries  and  othei 
ages  History  can  show  several  chiefs  as  great  as  Frederick,  and 
many  chiefs  greater  than  Bliicher.  How  few,  on  the  contrary,  are 


TO    LECTURE    III.  175 

the  natx7i»  that,  like  the  Prussian  at  these  two  periods,  have  stood 
firm  ag»insi  foreign  invaders  with  the  utmost  energy  and  the  ut- 
most moderati*.  n  combined, — never  relenting  in  their  just  hostility, 
and  never  venting  u,  like  some  soathern  races,  in  deeds  of  tumult 
and  assassination, — proud  of  their  martial  renown,  yet  not  blindly 
relying  upon  it,  and  alwaj-s  vindicating  that  pride  by  fresh  achieve- 
ments and  accumulated  ^loaes !" 

Lord  Mahon's  Kist.  of  England,  ch.  xxxviii.  vol.  iv.  p.  416 

NOTE  4. --Page  161. 

It  is  indeed  scarcely  possible  io  speak  with  exaggeration  of  the 
pomp  and  pride  of  power  displayed  during  Napoleon's  short  resi- 
dence at  Dresden,  at  the  beginning  of  his  Russian  campaign ;  but 
if  it  become  a  question  of  substantial  strength  and  of  the  durability 
of  the  imperial  power,  a  just  estimate  can  be  formed  only  by  taking 
into  consideration  what  Dr.  Arnold  has  elsewhere  noticed,  and 
which  stands  in  very  significant  contrast  with  the  pageantry  at 
Dresden : 

"  When  Napoleon  saw  kings  and  princes  bowing  before  him  at 
Dresden,  Wellington  was  advancing  victoriously  in  Spain." 

'  Life  and  Correspondence,1  Appendix  C,  ix.  19. 

In  the  eloquent  passage  in  this  lecture,  where  Dr.  Arnold  speaks 
of  the  tremendous  power  of  the  French  emperor  being  checked, 
resisted,  and  put  down,  "  by  none,  and  by  nothing  but  the  direct 
and  manifest  interposition  of  God,"  he  gives  a  view  of  the  disas- 
trous ending  of  the  Russian  campaign  that  is  most  impressive.  It 
is  a  pity  to  suggest  any  thing  that  will  weaken  that  impression,  but 
when  "  direct  and  manifest  interposition  of  God,"  apart  from  human 
agency,  is  spoken  of,  it  can  be  understood  only  of  the  destruction 
of  the  French  soldiery  by  the  severities  of  the  Russian  winter,  and 
that  to  this  alone  is  the  catastrophe  to  be  attributed.  It  can  hardly 
now  be  considered  a  question  whether  or  no  the  failure  of  the  in- 
vasion was  owing  entirely  to  the  destructive  cold,  or  to  that  to- 
gether with  ruinous  consequences  from  the  burning  of  Moscow.  It 
cannot  with  precision  be  said  that  it  was  by  the  elements  alone — 
cold,  or  fire,  or  both — that  such  destructive  havoc  was  made  with 


176  NOTES 

the  French  army ;  nor  is  it  necessary,  for  the  pur^  ose  of  strongly 
presenting  the  thought  of  Divine  interposition,  to  disparage  human 
agency.  The  fierce  avenging  courage  of  men  may  be  an  instru- 
ment, in  the  course  of  Providence,  no  less  than  the  pitiless  cold  of 
a  Siberian  winter.  A  note,  like  one  of  these,  is  not  an  appropriate 
place  to  examine  the  various  causes  of  the  ruin  of  the  expedition 
into  Russia,  nor  would  I  presume  to  discuss  the  military  questions 
respecting  the  campaign  ;  but  when  it  is  stated  that  the  discomfiture 
is  to  be  ascribed  to  nothing  but  the  direct  and  manifest  interposition 
of  God,  it  might  be  thought  that  the  calm  judgment  of  history 
did  not  recognise  the  skill  and  foresight  in  planning  and  executing 
such  an  invasion,  and  justice  would  not  be  done  to  that  indomitable 
bravery  with  which  the  injured  nation  withstood  the  invasion,  and 
the  energy  with  which  the  retreating  army  was  harassed  and  de- 
stroyed during  the  disastrous  retreat.  It  appears  to  be  well  estab- 
lished as  an  historical  result,  that  Napoleon  entered  Moscow  with 
an  army  so  reduced  in  force,  and  beset  with  so  many  difficulties 
and  dangers,  as  to  render  his  position  a  desperate  one — that  he 
began  the  retreat  most  reluctantly,  as  a  measure  of  inevitable  ne- 
cessity, about  three  weeks  too  before  the  intensely  cold  weather 
came  on — that,  after  the  bloody  fight  at  Malo-Jaroslawetz,  he  was 
compelled  to  retreat  by  the  worst  route,  the  same  by  which  he  had 
advanced,  and  that  the  cold  only  rendered  more  destructive  the  de- 
struction that  had  already  been  begun. 

In  the  account  of  "  the  Campaign  of  1812  in  Russia,"  written  by 
the  Prussian  general  Clausewitz,  who  was  in  the  Russian  service, 
he  arrives  at  these  conclusions,  p.  100  : 

"  1.  That  the  French  army  reached  Moscow  already  too  much 
weakened  for  the  attainment  of  the  end  of  its  enterprise.  For  the 
facts  that  one  third  of  its  force  had  been  wasted  before  reaching 
Smolensko,  and  another  before  Moscow,  could  not  fail  to  make 
an  impression  on  the  Russian  officers  in  command,  the  Emperor, 
and  the  ministry,  which  put  an  end  to  all  notions  of  peace  and 
concession." 

"  2.  That  the  actions  at  Wiazma,  Krasnoi,  and  the  Beresina, 
although  no  large  bodies  could  be  cited  as  cut  off,  occasioned  enor- 
mous losses  to  the  French  ;  and  that,  whatever  critics  may  say  of 
particular  moments  of  the  transaction,  the  entire  destruction  of  the 


TO    LECTURE    III.  177 

French  army  is  to  be  ascribed  to  the  unheard-of  energy  of  the  pur- 
suit, the  results  of  which  imagination  could  hardly  exaggerate." 

Impartial  French  opinion,  and  at  the  same  time  high  military 
authority,  may  be  cited  to  show  that  Moscow  was  considered  un- 
tenable for  the  French  army  even  before  the  conflagration  :  it  will 
be  found  in  the  *  Souvenirs'  of  his  own  life  by  General  Dumas,  who 
served  with  the  invading  army  during  the  campaign,  that  he  de- 
plored the  pertinacity  with  which  Napoleon  postponed  the  retreat, 
and  even  considered  the  conflagration  of  Moscow  a  fortunate  event, 
inasmuch  as  it  was  the  means  of  preventing  farther  delay  and  de- 
struction still  more  disastrous 

"  The  direct  and  manifest  interposition  of  God,"  that  Dr.  Arnold 
here  speaks  of,  had  been  the  subject  of  some  lofty  strains  of  Eng- 
lish poetry  nearly  contemporary  with  the  events ;  and  sometimes 
the  poet,  with  his  higher  aims  of  imaginative  truth,  is  found  to 
reach  also  more  accuracy  of  fact  than  the  historic  commentator. 
In  the  present  instance  it  is  the  Poet,  more  than  the  Lecturer, 
who  does  justice  to  human  agency — to  the  deeds  and  the  sufferings 
of  men  in  the  crisis  of  a  desperate  conflict,  while  the  presence  of 
a  Divine  power  of  retribution  is  not  less  recognised.  The  com- 
parison to  the  annihilation  of  the  Assyrian  host  had  already  been 
present  to  the  imagination  of  Southey  in  one  of  his  impassioned 
'vrics : 

"  Witness  that  dread  retreat, 
When  God  and  nature  smote 
The  tyrant  in  his  pride ! 

No  wider  ruin  overtook 
Sennacherib's  impious  host ; 
Nor  when  the  frantic  Persian  led 
His  veterans  to  the  Lybian  sands ; 

Nor  when  united  Greece 
O'er  the  barbaric  power  that  victory  won 

Which  Europe  yet  may  bless. 
A  fouler  tyrant  cursed  the  groaning  earth, 
A  fearfuller  destruction  was  dispensed. 
Victorious  armies  follow'd  on  his  flight ; 
On  every  side  he  met 
The  Cossacks'  dreadful  spear : 
On  every  side  he  saw 
The  injured  nation  rise 
Invincible  in  arms." 

'  Poetical  Works,1  vol.  iii  S4t 


178  HOTES 

In  that  series  of  poems  which  Wordsworth  has  worthily  inscribed 
as  *  dedicated  to  Liberty,'  the  subject  is  so  treated  as  to  show  the 
Divine  interposition  made  manifest  in  human  agency  as  well  as  in 
the  power  of  the  elements — the  work  of  destruction  begun  by  the 
self-devotion  and  the  courage  of  men,  and  finished  by  *  famine, 
enow,  and  frost :' — 


"No  pitying  voice  commands  a  halt, 
No  courage  can  repel  the  dire  assault ; 
Distracted,  spiritless,  benumbed,  and  blind, 
Whole  legions  sink— and,  in  one  instant,  find 
Burial  and  death :  look  for  them— and  descry, 
When  morn  returns,  beneath  the  clear  blue  sky, 
A  soundless  waste,  a  trackless  vacancy  !** 

By  Moscow  self-devoted  to  a  Maze 

Of  dreadful  sacrifice ;  by  Russian  blood 

Lavish'd  in  fight  with  desperate  hardihood ; 

The  unfeeling  Elements  no  claim  shall  raise 

To  rob  our  Human  Nature  of  just  praise 

For  what  she  did  and  suffer'd.    Pledges  sure 

Of  a  deliverance  absolute  and  pure 

She  gave,  if  Faith  might  tread  the  beaten  ways 

Of  Providence.    But  now  did  the  Most  High 

Exalt  his  still  small  voice ;— > to  quell  that  host 

Gather'd  his  power,  a  manifest  ally ; 

He,  whose  heap'd  waves  confounded  the  proud  boast 

Of  Pharaoh,  said  to  Famine,  Snow,  and  Frost, 

'Finish  the  strife  by  deadliest  victory !'  " 

'  Poetical  Works,1  vol.  iii.  pp.  238  and  24O. 


NOTE  5.— Page  164. 

The  best  way,  perhaps,  to  correct  the  inadequacy  here  alluded 
to  in  our  ordinary  notions  of  warfare,  and  to  obtain  a  theoretical 
sense  of  the  importance  of  the  *  economies'  of  war,  will  be  by 
the  perusal  of  the  correspondence  of  those  who  are  in  command — 
for  example,  the  official  military  letters  of  Washington,  or  the  dis- 
patches of  Wellington.  From  these  the  reader  may  form  some 
conception  of  the  difficulty  of  provisioning  an  army — of  clothing 
and  daily  feeding  a  large  assemblage  of  soldiers — of  the  c  are  of  the 
sick  and  wounded,  &c.  &c.  I  cannot  dismiss  a  reference  to  tha 


TO   LECTURE    III.  179 

military  correspondence  of  Washington  and  Wellington  without 
noticing  how  much  each  is  characterized  by  the  same  qualities  in 
the  writers — of  good  sense,  or  (to  use  a  more  adequate  term)  the 
highest  practical  wisdom — of  singleness  of  purpose — of  heroism 
genuine  and  unostentatious — of  integrity  and  an  ever-present  sense 
of  duty  and  the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice ;  and  with  these  qualities  a 
straight-forward  simplicity  of  style — such  as  has  been  truly  said  to 
be  the  soldierly  style — the  style  that  is  common  to  these  great  cap- 
tains of  modern  times,  and  to  Xenophon  and  Caesar. 


LECTURE  IV. 


AT  the  very  beginning  of  this  lecture  I  must  myself  remind 
you,  lest  it  should  occur  to  your  own  minds  if  I  were  to  omit 
it,  of  that  well-known  story  of  the  Greek  sophist  who  dis- 
coursed at  length  upon  the  art  of  war,  when  Hannibal  hap- 
pened to  be  amongst  his  audience.  Some  of  his  hearers,  full 
of  admiration  of  his  eloquence  and  knowledge,  for  such  it 
seemed  to  them,  eagerly  applied  to  the  great  general  for  his 
judgment,  not  doubting  that  it  would  confirm  their  own.  But 
Hannibal's  answer  was,  that  he  had  met  with  many  absurd 
old  men  in  his  life,  but  never  with  one  so  absurd  as  this  lec- 
turer. The  recollection  of  this  story  should  ever  be  present 
to  unmilitary  men,  when  they  attempt  to  speak  about  war  ; 
and  though  there  may  be  no  Hannibal  actually  present 
amongst  us,  yet  I  would  wish  to  speak  as  cautiously  as  if  my 
words  were  to  be  heard  by  one  as  competent  to  judge  them 
as  he  was. 

But  although  the  story  relates  to  the  art  of  war  only,  yet 
it  is  in  fact  universally  applicable.  The  unprofessional  man, 
idiurqSi  must  speak  with  hesitation  in  presence  of  a  master 
of  his  craft.  And  not  only  in  his  presence,  but  generally, 
he  who  is  a  stranger  to  any  profession  must  be  aware  of  his 
own  disadvantages  when  speaking  of  the  subject  of  that  pro- 
fession. Yet  consider,  on  the  other  hand,  that  no  one  man 
in  the  common  course  of  things  has  more  than  one  profession ; 
is  he  then  to  be  silent,  or  to  feel  himself  incapable  of  passing 
a  judgment  upon  the  subjects  of  all  professions  except  that 

16 


182  LECTURE    IV. 


one  ?  And  consider  farther,  that  professional  men  may  labor 
under  some  disadvantages  of  their  own,  looking  at  their  call- 
ing  from  within  always,  and  never  from  without  ;  and  from 
their  very  devotion  to  it,  not  being  apt  to  see  it  in  its  relations 
with  other  matters.  Farther  still,  the  writer  of  history  seems 
under  the  necessity  of  overstepping  this  professional  barrier  ; 
he  must  speak  of  wars,  he  must  speak  of  legislation,  he  must 
often  speak  of  religious  disputes,  and  of  questions  of  political 
economy.  Yet  he  cannot  be  at  once  soldier,  seaman,  states- 
man, lawyer,  clergyman,  and  merchant.  Clearly  then  there 
is  a  distinction  to  be  drawn  somewhere,  there  must  be  a  point 
up  to  which  an  unprofessional  judgment  of  a  professional 
subject  may  be  not  only  competent  but  of  high  authority  ; 
although  beyond  that  point  it  cannot  venture  without  pre- 
sumption and  folly. 

The  distinction  seems  to  lie  originally  in  the  difference 
between  the  power  of  doing  a  thing,  and  that  of  perceiving 
whether  it  be  well  done  or  not.  He  who  lives  in  the  house, 
says  Aristotle,  is  a  better  judge  of  its  being  a  good  or  a  bad 
one,  than  the  builder  of  it.  He  can  tell  not  only  whether 
the  house  is  'good  or  bad,  but  wherein  its  defects  consist  ;  he 
can  say  to  the  builder,  This  chimney  smokes,  or  has  a  bad 
draught  :  or  this  arrangement  of  the  rooms  is  inconvenient  ; 
and  yet  he  may  be  quite  unable  to  cure  the  chimney,  or  to 
draw  out  a  plan  for  his  rooms  which  would  on  the  whole  suit 
him  better.  Nay,  sometimes  he  can  even  see  where  the 
fault  is  which  has  caused  the  mischief,  and  yet  he  may  not 
know  practically  how  to  remedy  it.  Following  up  this  prin- 
ciple, it  would  appear  that  what  we  understand  least  in  the 
profession  -»f  another  is  the  detail  of  his  practice  ;  we  may 
appreciate  nis  object,  may  see  where  he  has  missed  it,  or 
where  he  is  pursuing  it  ill  ;  nay,  may  understand  generally 
•he  method  of  setting  about  it  ;  but  we  fail  in  the  minute  de- 
ails.  Applying  this  to  the  art  of  war,  and  we  shall  see,  1 


LECTURE    IV.  183 

think,  that  the  part  which  unprofessional  men  can  least 
understand  is  what  is  technically  called  tactic,  the  practical 
management  of  the  men  in  action  or  even  upon  parade  ;  the 
handling,  so  to  speak,  of  themselves,  no  less  than  the  ac- 
tual handling  of  their  weapons.  Let  a  man  be  as  versed  as 
he  will  in  military  history,  he  must  well  know  that  in  these 
essential  points  of  the  last  resort  he  is  helpless,  and  the  com- 
monest sergeant,  or  the  commonest  soldier,  knows  infinitely 
more  of  the  matter  than  he  does.  But  in  proportion  as  we 
recede  from  these  details  to  more  general  points,  first  to  what 
is  technically  called  strategy,  that  is  to  say,  the  directing  the 
movements  of  an  army  with  a  view  to  the  accomplishment  of 
the  object  of  the  campaign  ;  and  next  to  the  whole  conduct 
of  the  war,  as  political  or  moral  questions  may  affect  it,  in 
that  proportion  general  knowledge  and  powers  of  mind  come 
into  play,  and  an  unprofessional  person  may  without  blame 
speak  or  write  on  military  subjects,  and  may  judge  of  them 
sufficiently.  (1) 

Thus  much  premised,  we  may  venture  to  look  a  little  at 
the  history  of  the  great  external  contests  of  Europe,  and  as 
all  our  historians  are  full  of  descriptions  of  wars  and  battles, 
we  will  see  what  lessons  are  to  be  gained  from  them,  and 
what  questions  arise  out  of  them. 

The  highest  authority  in  such  matters,  the  Emperor  Napo- 
leon, has  told  us  expressly  that  as  a  study  for  a  soldier  there 
were  only  four  generals  in  modern  history  whose  campaigns 
were  worth  following  in  detail ;  namely,  Turenne,  Montecu- 
culi,  Eugene  of  Savoy,  and  Frederick  of  Prussia.  (2)  It 
was  only  an  unworthy  feeling  which  made  him  omit  the  name 
of  Marlborough  ;  and  no  one  could  hesitate  to  add  to  the  list 
nis  own.  But  he  spoke  of  generals  who  were  dead,  and  of 
course  in  adding  no  other  name  to  this  catalogue,  I  am  fol- 
lowing the  same  rule.  Marlborough  and  Eugene,  Frederick 
and  Napoleon,  are  gpiierals  whose  greatness  the  commonest 


184  LECTURE    IV. 

reader  can  feel,  because  he  sees  the  magnitude  of  their  ex- 
ploits.  But  the  campaigns  of  Turenne  and  Montecuculi  on 
the  Rhine,  where  they  were  opposed  to  each  other,  although 
Napoleon's  testimony  is  quite  sufficient  to  establish  their 
value  as  a  professional  study  for  a  soldier,  are  yet  too  much 
confined  to  movements  of  detail  to  be  readily  appreciated  by 
others.  Turenne's  military  reputation  we  must  for  the  most 
part  take  upon  trust,  not  disputing  it,  but  being  unable  to  ap- 
preciate it.  On  the -other  hand,  the  general  reader  will  turn 
with  interest  to  many  points  of  military  history  which  Napo- 
leon disregarded  :  the  greatness  of  the  stake  at  issue,  the 
magnitude  of  the  events,  the  moral  or  intellectual  qualities 
displayed  by  the  contending  parties,  are  to  us  exceedingly 
interesting ;  although  I  confess  that  I  think  the  interest 
heightened  when  there  is  added  to  all  these  elements  that  of 
consummate  military  ability  besides. 

One  of  the  most  certain  of  all  lessons  of  military  history, 
although  some  writers  have  neglected  it,  and  some  have  even 
disputed  it,  is  the  superiority  of  discipline  to  enthusiasm. 
Much  serious  mischief  has  been  done  by  an  ignorance  or 
disbelief  of  this  truth  ;  and  if  ever  the  French  had  landed  in 
this  country  in  the  early  part  of  the  late  war,  we  might  have 
been  taught  it  by  a  bitter  experience.  The  defeat  of  Cope's 
army  by  the  Highlanders  at  Preston  Pans  is  no  exception  to 
this  rule,  for  it  was  not  the  enthusiasm  of  the  Highlanders 
which  won  the  day,  but  their  novel  manner  of  fighting  which 
perplexed  their  enemies ;  and  the  Highlanders  had  besides  a 
discipline  of  their  own  which  made  them  to  a  certain  degree 
efficient  soldiers.  But  as  soon  as  the  surprise  was  over,  and 
an  officer  of  even  moderate  ability  was  placed  at  the  head  of 
the  royal  army,  the  effect  of  the  higher  discipline  and  superior 
tactic  of  one  of  the  regular  armies  of  Europe  became  instantly 
visible,  and  the  victory  at  Culloden  was  won  with  no  diffi- 
culty. Even  in  France,  where  the  natural  genius  of  the 


o 

t 

LECTURE    IV.  185 

people  for  war  is  greater  than  in  any  other  country,  and 
although  the  enthusiasm  of  the  Vendeans  was  directed  by 
officers  of  great  ability,  yet  the  arrival  of  the  old  soldiers  of 
the  garrison  of  Mentz  immediately  decided  the  contest,  and 
gave  them  a  defeat  from  which  they  could  never  recover.  (3) 
On  the  other  hand,  while  not  even  the  most  military  nations 
can  become  good  soldiers  without  discipline,  yet  with  disci- 
pline even  the  most  unmilitary  can  be  made  efficient ;  of 
which  no  more  striking  instance  can  be  given  than  the  high 
military  character  of  our  Sepoy  army  in  India.  The  first 
thing  then  to  be  done  in  all  warfare,  whether  foreign  or  do- 
mestic, is  to  discipline  our  men,  and  till  they  are  thoroughly 
disciplined  to  avoid  above  all  things  the  exposing  them  to  any 
general  actions  with  the  enemy.  History  is  full  indeed  of 
instances  of  great  victories  gained  by  a  very  small  force  over 
a  very  large  one ;  but  not  by  undisciplined  men,  however 
brave  and  enthusiastic,  over  those  who  were  well  disciplined, 
except  under  peculiar  circumstances  of  surprise  or  local 
advantages,  such  as  cannot  affect  the  truth  of  the  general 
rule. 

It  is  a  question  of  some  interest,  whether  history  justifies  \ 
the  belief  of  an  inherent  superiority  in  some  races  of  men 
over  others,  or  whether  all  such  differences  are  only  acci- 
dental and  temporary  ;  and  we  are  to  acquiesce  in  the  judg- 
ment of  king  Archidamus,  that  one  man  naturally  differs  little 
from  another,  but  that  culture  and  training  makes  the  dis- 
tinction. There  are  some  very  satisfactory  examples  to 
show  that  a  nation  must  not  at  an)'  rate  assume  lightly  that 
it  is  superior  to  another,  because  it  may  have  gained  great 
victories  over  it.  Judging  by  the  experience  of  the  period 
from  1796  to  1809,  we  might  say  that  the  French  were  de- 
cidedly superior  to  the  Austrians ;  and  so  the  campaign  of 
j.806  might  seem  to  show  an  equal  superiority  over  the  Prus- 
gians.  Yet  in  the  long  struggle  between  the  Austrian  and 

16* 


186  LECTURE    IV. 

French  monarchies,  the  military  success  of  each  are  wonder- 
fully  balanced  ;  in  1796,  whilst  Napoleon  was  defeating 
army  after  army  in  Italy,  the  archduke  Charles  was  driving 
Jourdan  and  Moreau  before  him  out  of  Germany  ;  and  Fred- 
erick the  Great  defeated  the  French  at  Rosbach  as  completely 
and  easily  as  Napoleon  defeated  the  Prussians  at  Jena.  The 
military  character  of  the  Italians  is  now  low  :  yet  without 
going  back  to  the  Roman  times,  we  find  that  in  the  sixteenth 
century  the  inhabitants  of  the  Roman  states  were  reputed  to 
possess  in  an  eminent  degree  the  qualities  of  soldiers,  and 
some  of  the  ablest  generals  of  Europe,  Alexander  Farnese 
prince  of  Parma,  Spinola,  and  Montecuculi,  were  natives  of 
Italy.  In  our  own  contests  with  France,  our  superiority  ha? 
not  always  been  what  our  national  vanity  would  imagine  it ; 
Philip  Augustus  and  Louis  the  Ninth  were  uniformly  suc- 
cessful against  John  and  Henry  the  Third  ;  the  conquests  of 
Edward  the  Third  and  Henry  the  Fifth  were  followed  by  pe- 
riods of  equally  unvaried  disasters  ;  and  descending  to  later 
times,  if  Marlborough  was  uniformly  victorious,  yet  king 
William  when  opposed  to  Luxembourg,  and  the  duke  of 
Cumberland  when  opposed  to  Marshal  Saxe,  were  no  less 
uniformly  beaten.  Such  examples  are,  I  think,  satisfactory  ; 
for  judging  calmly,  we  would  not  surely  wish  that  one  nation 
should  be  uniformly  and  inevitably  superior  to  another ;  I  do 
not  know  what  national  virtue  could  safely  be  subjected  to  so 
severe  a  temptation.  If  there  be,  as  perhaps  there  are,  some 
physical  and  moral  qualities  enjoyed  by  some  nations  in  a 
higher  degree  than  by  others,  and  this,  so  far  as  we  see,  con- 
stitutionally ;  yet  the  superiority  is  not  so  great  but  that  a 
little  over  presumption  and  carelessness  on  one  side,  or  a  lit- 
tle increased  activity  and  more  careful  discipline  on  the  other, 
and  still  more  any  remarkable  individual  genius  in  the  gen- 
erals or  in  the  government,  may  easily  restore  the  balance, 
or  even  turn  it  the  other  way.  It  is  quite  a  different  thing 


LECTURE    IV.  187 

and  very  legitimate  to  feel  that  we  have  such  qualities  as  will 
save  us  from  ever  being  despicable  enemies,  or  from  being 
easily  defeated  by  others ;  but  it  is  much  better  that  we 
should  not  feel  so  confident,  as  to  think  that  others  must 
always  be  defeated  by  us.  (4) 

But  the  thoughtful  student  of  military  history  will  find 
other  questions  suggesting  themselves  of  a  deeper  interest ; 
he  will  consider  whether  the  laws  of  war,  as  at  present 
acknowledged,  are  not  susceptible  of  further  improvement ; 
he  will  wish  to  make  out  the  real  merits  of  certain  cases, 
which  historians  seem  always  to  decide  from  mere  partial 
feelings,  according  to  the  parties  concerned,  rather  than  by 
any  fixed  principle.  For  what  is  sometimes  and  by  one  party 
called  an  heroic  national  resistance,  is  by  others  called  insur- 
rection and  brigandage  ;  and  what,  according  to  one  version, 
are  but  strong  and  just  severities  for  the  maintenance  of  peace, 
are,  according  to  another,  wholesale  murders  and  military 
massacres.  Now  certainly,  if  there  be  no  other  rule  in  this 
matter  than  the  justice  of  either  party's  cause,  the  case  is 
evidently  incapable  of  decision  till  the  end  of  time ;  for  in 
every  war,  whether  civil  or  foreign,  both  sides  always  main- 
tain that  they  are  in  the  right.  But  this  being  a  point  always 
assumed  by  one  party  and  denied  by  the  other,  it  is  much 
better  that  it  should  be  put  aside  altogether,  and  that  the 
merits  or  demerits  of  what  is  called  a  national  war  should 
be  tried  on  some  more  tangible  and  acknowledged  ground. 
Now  it  seems  one  of  the  greatest  improvements  of  the  modern 
laws  of  war,  that  regular  armies  are  considered  to  be  the 
only  belligerents,  and  that  the  inhabitants  of  a  country  which 
shall  happen  to  be  the  seat  of  war,  shall  be  regarded  as  neu- 
trals, and  protected  both  in  their  persons  and  property.  It  is 
held  that  such  a  system  does  but  prevent  gratuitous  horrors ;  a 
treacherous  and  assassinating  kind  of  warfare  on  one  side,  and 
on  the  other  cruelties  and  outrages  of  the  worst  description,  in 


188  LECTURE    IV. 

which  the  most  helpless  part  of  the  population,  the  sick  and 
the  aged,  women  and  children,  are  the  greatest  sufferers. 
But  it  is  quite  essential  that  this  system  of  forbearance  should 
be  equally  observed  by  both  parties  ;  if  soldiers  plunder  or 
set  fire  to  a  village  they  cannot  complain  if  the  inhabitants 
cut  off  their  stragglers,  or  shoot  at  them  from  behind  walls 
and  hedges ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  if  the  inhabitants  of  a 
village  will  go  out  on  their  own  account  to  annoy  an  enemy's 
march,  to  interrupt  his  communications,  and  to  fire  upon  his 
men  wherever  they  can  find  them,  they  too  must  be  patient 
if  the  enemy  in  return  burn  their  village,  and  hang  them  up 
as  brigands.  For  it  is  idle  to  say  that  the  mere  circumstance 
that  an  army  is  invading  its  enemy's  country,  puts  it  out  of 
the  pale  of  civilized  hostility ;  or,  at  any  rate,  if  this  be 
maintained,  it  is  worse  than  idle  to  say  that  it  may  not  re- 
taliate this  system,  and  put  out  of  the  pale  of  civilized  hostil- 
ity those  who  have  begun  so  to  deal  with  them.  The  truth 
is,  that  if  war,  carried  on  by  regular  armies  under  the  strict- 
est discipline,  is  yet  a  great  evil,  an  irregular  partisan 
warfare  is  an  evil  ten  times  more  intolerable ;  it  is  in  fad 
no  other  than  to  give  a  license  to  a  whole  population  to  com- 
mit all  sorts  of  treachery,  rapine,  and  cruelty  without  any 
restraint ;  letting  loose  a  multitude  of  armed  men,  with  none 
of  the  obedience  and  none  of  the  honourable  feelings  of  a 
soldier ;  cowardly  because  they  are  undisciplined,  and  cruel 
because  they  are  cowardly.  It  seems  then  the  bounden  duty 
of  every  government,  not  only  not  to  encourage  such  irregu- 
lar warfare  on  the  part  of  its  population,  but  carefully  to 
repress  it,  and  to  oppose  its  enemy  only  with  its  regular 
troops,  or  with  men  regularly  organized,  and  acting  unde/ 
authorized  officers,  who  shall  observe  the  ordinary  humanities 
of  civilized  war.  And  what  are  called  patriotic  insurrections, 
or  irregular  risings  of  the  whole  population  to  annoy  an  in- 
vading  army  by  all  means,  ought  impartially  to  be  condemn- 


LECTURE    IV.  189 

ed,  by  whomsoever  and  against  whomsoever  practised,  as  a 
resource  of  small  and  doubtful  efficacy,  but  full  of  certain 
atrocity,  and  a  most  terrible  aggravation  of  the  evils  of  war. 
Of  course,  if  an  invading  army  sets  the  example  of  such 
irregular  warfare,  if  they  proceed  after  the  manner  of  the 
ancients  t<?  lay  waste  the  country  in  mere  wantonness,  to 
burn  houses,  and  to  be  guilty  of  personal  outrages  on  the 
inhabitants,  then  they  themselves  invite  retaliation,  and  a 
guerilla  warfare  against  such  an  invader  becomes  justifiable. 
But  our  .censure  in  all  cases  should  have  reference  not  to  the 
justice  of  the  original  war,  which  is  a  point  infinitely  dis- 
putable, but  to  the  simple  fact,  which  side  first  set  the 
example  of  departing  from  the  laws  of  civilized  warfare,  and 
of  beginning  a  system  of  treachery  and  atrocity. 

As  this  is  a  matter  of  some  importance,  I  may  be  allowed 
to  dwell  a  little  longer  upon  a  vague  notion  not  uncommonly, 
as  I  believe,  entertained,  that  a  people  whose  country  is  at- 
tacked, by  which  is  meant  whose  territory  is  the  seat  of  war, 
are  sustaining  some  intolerable  wrong  which  they  are  justi- 
fied in  repelling  by  any  and  every  means.  But  in  the  natu- 
ral course  of  things,  war  must  be  carried  on  in  the  territory 
of  one  belligerent  or  of  the  other  ;  it  is  an  accident  merely 
if  their  fighting  ground  happen  to  be  the  country  of  some 
third  party.  Now  it  cannot  be  said  that  the  party  which 
acts  on  the  offensive,  war  having  been  once  declared,  becomes 
in  the  wrong  by  doing  so,  or  that  the  object  of  all  invasion  is 
conquest.  You  invade  your  enemy  in  order  to  compel  him 
to  do  you  justice ;  that  is,  to  force  him  to  make  peace  on 
reasonable  terms.  This  is  your  theory  of  the  case,  and  it  is 
one  which  must  be  allowed  to  be  maintainable  just  as  much 
as  your  enemy's,  for  all  laws  of  war  waive  and  must  waive 
the  question  as  to  the  original  justice  of  the  quarrel ;  they 
assume  that  both  parties  are  equally  in  the  right.  But  sup- 
pose invasion  for  the  sake  of  conquest,  I  do  not  say  of  the 


190  LECTURE    IV. 

whole  of  your  enemy's  country,  but  of  that  portion  of  it 
which  you  are  invading ;  as  we  have  many  times  invaded 
French  colonies  with  a  view  to  their  incorporation  perma- 
nently with  the  British  dominions.  Conquests  of  such  a  sort 
are  no  violations  necessarily  of  the  legitimate  object  of  war, 
they  may  be  considered  as  a  security  taken  for  the  time  to 
come.  Yet  undoubtedly  the  shock  to  the  inhabitants  of  the 
particular  countries  so  invaded  is  very  great ;  it  was  not  a 
light  thing  for  the  Canadian,  or  the  inhabitant  of  Trinidad, 
or  of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  to  be  severed  from  the  people 
of  his  own  blood  and  language,  from  his  own  mother  state, 
and  to  be  subjected  to  the  dominion  of  foreigners,  men  with 
a  strange  language,  strange  manners,  a  different  church,  and  a 
different  law.  That  the  inhabitants  of  such  countries  should 
enlist  very  zealously  in  the  militia,  and  should  place  the  re- 
sources of  defence  very  readily  in  the  hands  of  the  govern- 
ment, is  quite  just  and  quite  their  duty ;  I  am  only  depre- 
cating the  notion  that  they  should  rise  in  irregular  warfare, 
each  man  or  each  village  for  itself,  and  assail  the  invaders  as 
their  personal  enemies,  killing  them  whenever  and  wherever 
they  can  find  them.  Or  again,  suppose  that  the  invasion  is 
undertaken  for  the  purpose  of  overthrowing  the  existing 
government  of  a  country,  as  the  attempted  French  descents 
to  co-operate  with  the  Jacobites,  or  the  invasion  of  France  by 
the  coalesced  powers  in  1792  and  1793,  and  again  in  1814 
and  1815.  When  the  English  army  advanced  into  France 
in  1814,  respecting  persons  and  property,  and  paying  for 
every  article  of  food  which  they  took  from  the  country, 
would  it  have  been  for  the  inhabitants  to  barricade  every 
village,  to  have  lurked  in  every  thicket  and  behind  every 
wall  to  shoot  stragglers  and  sentinels,  and  keep  up  night  and 
day  a  war  of  extermination  ?  (5)  If  indeed  the  avowed  ob- 
ject of  the  invader  be  the  destruction  not  of  any  particular 
government,  but  of  the  national  existence  altogether  j  if  he 


LECTURE    IV.  19 ' 

thus  disclaims  the  usual  object  of  legitimate  war,  a  fair  ana 
lasting  peace,  and  declares  that  he  makes  it  a  war  of  exter- 
mination, he  doubtless  cannot  complain  if  the  usual  laws  of 
war  are  departed  from  against  him,  when  he  himself  sets  the 
example.  But  even  then,  when  we  consider  what  unspeak- 
able atrocities  a  partisan  warfare  gives  birth  to,  and  that  no 
nation  attacked  by  an  overwhelming  force  of  disciplined 
armies  was  ever  saved  by  such  means,  it  may  be  doubted 
even  tnen  whether  it  be  justifiable,  unless  the  invader  drives 
the  inhabitants  to  it,  by  treating  them  from  the  beginning  as 
enemies,  and  outraging  their  persons  and  property.  If  this 
judgment  seem  extreme  to  any  one,  I  would  only  ask  him  to 
consider  well  first  the  cowardly,  treacherous,  and  atrocious 
character  of  all  guerilla  warfare,  and  in  the  next  place  the 
certain  misery  which  it  entails  on  the  country  which  prac- 
tises it,  and  its  inefficacy,  as  a  general  rule,  to  conquer  or 
expel  an  enemy,  however  much  it  may  annoy  him. 

Other  questions  will  also  occur  to  us,  questions  I  grant  of 
some  theoretical  and  much  practical  difficulty,  yet  which 
surely  require  to  be  seriously  considered.  I  allude  particu- 
larly to  the  supposed  right  of  sacking  a  town  taken  by  assault, 
and  of  blockading  a  town  defended  not  by  the  inhabitants 
but  by  a  garrison  wholly  independent  of  their  control ;  the 
known  consequences  of  such  a  blockade  being  the  starvation 
of  the  inhabitants  before  the  garrison  can  be  made  to  suffer. 
The  extreme  hardness  in  such  cases  is  that  the  penalty  falls 
chiefly  on  the  innocent.  When  a  town  is  sacked  we  do  not 
commonly  hear  of  the  garrison  being  put  to  the  sword  in  cold 
blood,  on  the  plea  that  they  have  no  right  to  quarter.  Gen- 
eral Philippon  and  his  garrison  laid  down  their  arms  at  Ba- 
dajoz,  and  were  treated  as  prisoners  of  war,  whilst  the  houses 
of  the  Spanish  inhabitants  were  plundered.  And  be  it  re- 
membered, that  when  we  speak  of  plundering  a  town  after  an 
assault,  we  veil  under  that  softer  name  all  crimes  which  man 


192  LECTURE    IV. 

in  his  worst  excesses  can  commit,  horrors  so  atrocious  thai 
their  very  atrocity  preserves  them  from  our  full  execration, 
because  it  makes  it  impossible  to  describe  them.  On  this 
subject,  on  the  abominable  character  of  such  scenes,  and  the 
possibility  of  preventing  them,  I  will  give  you  not  my  own 
crude  opinion,  who  know  nothing  of  the  actual  state  of  armies 
at  such  moments,  but  that  of  a  veteran  soldier,  who  knows 
well  the  horrors  of  war  while  he  deeply  feels  its  stirring 
power,  and  its  opportunities  of  nobleness,  the  historian  of  the 
war  in  the  Spanish  peninsula.  General  Napier's  language 
is  as  follows : 

"  It  is  a  common  but  shallow  and  mischievous  notion,  that 
a  villain  makes  never  the  worse  soldier  for  an  assault,  be- 
cause the  appetite  for  plunder  supplies  the  place  of  honour ; 
as  if  the  compatibility  of  vice  and  bravery  rendered  the  union 
of  virtue  and  courage  unnecessary  in  warlike  matters.  In 
all  the  host  which  stormed  San  Sebastian,  there  was  not  a 
man  who  being  sane  would  for  plunder  only  have  encountered 
the  danger  of  that  assault,  yet  under  the  spell  of  discipline 
all  rushed  eagerly  to  meet  it.  Discipline  however  has  its 
root  in  patriotism,  or  how  could  armed  men  be  controlled  at 
all,  and  it  would  be  wise  and  far  from  difficult  to  graft  moder- 
ation and  humanity  upon  such  a  noble  stock.  The  modern 
soldier  is  not  necessarily  the  stern  bloody-handed  man  the 
ancient  soldier  was;  there  is  as  much  difference  between 
them  as  between  the  sportsman  and  the  butcher ;  the  ancient 
warrior  righting  with  the  sword  and  reaping  his  harvest  of 
death  when  the  enemy  was  in  flight,  became  habituated  to  the 
act  of  slaying.  The  modern  soldier  seldom  uses  his  bayonet, 
sees  not  his  peculiar  victim  fall,  and  exults  not  over  mangled 
limbs  as  proofs  of  personal  prowess.  (6)  Hence  preserving 
his  original  feelings,  his  natural  abhorrence  of  murder  and 
crimes  of  violence,  he  differs  not  from  other  men  unless  often 
engaged  in  the  assault  of  towns,  where  rapacity,  lust,  and 


LECTURE    IV.  193 

inebriety,  unchecked  by  the  restraints  of  discipline,  are 
excited  by  temptation.  It  is  said  that  no  soldier  can  be  re- 
strained after  storming  a  town,  and  a  British  soldier  least  of 
all,  because  he  is  brutish  and  insensible  to  honour !  Shame 
on  such  calumnies !  What  makes  the  British  soldier  fight 
as  no  other  soldier  ever  fights  ?  His  pay  ?  Soldiers  of  all 
nations  receive  pay.  At  the  period  of  this  assault,  a  sergeant 
of  the  twenty-eighth  regiment  named  Ball,  had  been  sent 
with  a  party  to  the  coast  from  Roncesvalles,  to  make  pur- 
chases for  his  officers.  He  placed  the  money  he  was  in- 
trusted with,  two  thousand  dollars,  in  the  hands  of  a  commis- 
sary, and  having  secured  a  receipt,  persuaded  his  party  to 
join  in  the  storm.  He  survived,  reclaimed  the  money,  made 
his  purchases,  and  returned  to  his  regiment.  And  these  are 
the  men,  these  are  the  spirits,  who  are  called  too  brutish  to 
work  upon  except  by  fear.  It  is  precisely  fear  to  which 
they  are  most  insensible. 

"  Undoubtedly  if  soldiers  read  and  hear  that  it  is  impossible 
to  restrain  their  violence,  they  will  not  be  restrained.  But 
let  the  plunder  of  a  town  after  an  assault  be  expressly  made 
criminal  by  the  articles  of  war,  with  a  due  punishment  at- 
tached ;  let  it  be  constantly  impressed  upon  the  troops  that 
such  conduct  is  as  much  opposed  to  military  honour  and  dis- 
cipline as  it  is  to  morality ;  let  a  select  permanent  body  of 
men  receiving  higher  pay  form  a  part  of  the  army,  and  be 
charged  to  follow  storming  columns  to  aid  in  preserving 
order,  and  with  power  to  inflict  instantaneous  punishment, 
death  if  it  be  necessary.  Finally,  as  reward  for  extraor- 
dinary valour  should  keep  pace  with  chastisement  for  crimes 
committed  under  such  temptation,  it  would  be  fitting  that 
money,  apportioned  to  the  danger  and  importance  of  the  ser- 
vice, should  be  ensured  to  the  successful  troops,  and  always 
paid  without  delay.  This  money  might  be  taken  as  ransom 
from  enemies,  but  if  the  inhabitants  are  friends,  or  too  poor, 

17 


194  LECTURE    IV. 

government  should  furnish  the  amount.  With  such  regula. 
tions,  the  storming  of  towns  would  not  produce  more  military 
disorders  than  the  gaming  of  battles  in  the  field.3'* 

The  other  case  on  which  it  seems  desirable  that  the  law 
of  nations  should  either  be  amended,  or  declared  more  clearly 
and  enforced  in  practice,  is  that  of  the  blockade  of  towns  not 
defended  by  their  inhabitants,  in  order  to  force  their  surrender 
by  starvation.  And  here  let  us  try  to  realize  to  ourselves 
what  such  a  blockade  is.  We  need  not,  unhappily,  draw  a 
fancied  picture ;  history,  and  no  remote  history  either,  will 
supply  us  with  the  facts.  Some  of  you,  I  doubt  not,  remem- 
ber Genoa ;  you  have  seen  that  queenly  city  with  its  streets 
of  palaces,  rising  tier  above  tier  from  the  water,  girdling 
with  the  long  lines  of  its  bright  white  houses  the  vast  sweep 
of  its  harbour,  the  mouth  of  which  is  marked  by  a  huge 
natural  mole  of  rock,  crowned  by  its  magnificent  light-house 
tower.  You  remember  how  its  white  houses  rose  out  of  a  mass 
of  fig,  and  olive,  and  orange-trees,  the  glory  of  its  old  patri- 
cian luxury ;  you  may  have  observed  the  mountains  behind 
the  town  spotted  at  intervals  by  small  circular  low  towers, 
one  of  which  is  distinctly  conspicuous  where  the  ridge  of  the 
hills  rises  to  its  summit,  and  hides  from  view  all  the  country 
behind  it.  Those  towers  are  the  forts  of  the  famous  lines, 
which,  curiously  resembling  in  shape  the  later  Syracusan 
walls  enclosing  Epipolae,  converge  inland  from  the  eastern 
and  western  extremities  of  the  city,  looking  down,  the  west- 
ern line  on  the  valley  of  the  Polcevera,  the  eastern  on  that  of 
the  Bisagno,  till  they  meet  as  I  have  said  on  the  summit  of 
the  mountains,  where  the  hills  cease  to  rise  from  the  sea,  and 
become  more  or  less  of  a  table-land  running  off  towards  the 
interior,  at  the  distance,  as  well  as  I  remember,  of  between 
two  and  three  miles  from  the  outside  of  the  city.  Thus  a 
very  large  open  space  is  enclosed  within  the  lines,  and  Genoa 

*  History  of  the  Wqr  in  tfoe  Peninsula,  vol.  vj.  p.  215. 


LECTURE    IV.  195 

is  capable  therefore  of  becoming  a  vast  entrenched  camp, 
holding  not  so  much  a  garrison  as  an  army.  In  the  autumn 
of  1799  the  Austrians  had  driven  the  French  out  of  Lorn- 
hardy  and  Piedmont ;  their  last  victory  of  Fossano  or  Genola 
had  won  the  fortress  of  Coni  or  Cuneo  close  under  the  Alps, 
and  at  the  very  extremity  of  the  plain  of  the  Po ;  the  French 
clung  to  Italy  only  by  their  hold  of  the  Riviera  of  Genoa, 
the  narrow  strip  of  coast  between  the  Apennines  and  the  sea, 
which  extends  from  the  frontiers  of  France  almost  to  the 
mouth  of  the  Arno.  Hither  the  remains  of  the  French  force 
were  collected,  commanded  by  General  Massena,  and  the 
point  of  chief  importance  to  his  defence  was  the  city  of 
Genoa.  Napoleon  had  just  returned  from  Egypt,  and  was 
become  First  Consul ;  but  he  could  not  be  expected  to  take 
the  field  till  the  following  spring,  and  till  then  Massena  was 
hopeless  of  relief  from  without,  every  thing  was  to  depend  on 
his  own  pertinacity.  The  strength  of  his  army  made  it  im- 
possible to  force  it  in  such  a  position  as  Genoa ;  but  its  very 
numbers,  added  to  the  population  of  a  great  city,  held  out  to 
the  enemy  a  hope  of  reducing  it  by  famine  ;  and  as  Genoa 
derives  most  of  its  supplies  by  sea,  Lord  Keith,  the  British 
naval  commander-in-chief  in  the  Mediterranean,  lent  the 
assistance  of  his  naval  force  to  the  Austrians,  and  by  the 
vigilance  of  his  cruisers,  the  whole  coasting  trade  right  and 
left  along  the  Riviera  was  effectually  cut  off.  It  is  not  at 
once  that  the  inhabitants  of  a  great  city,  accustomed  to  the 
daily  sight  of  well-stored  shops  and  an  abundant  market, 
begin  to  realize  the  idea  of  scarcity ;  or  that  the  wealthy 
classes  of  society,  who  have  never  known  any  other  state 
than  one  of  abundance  and  luxury,  begin  seriously  to  con- 
ceive of  famine.  But  the  shops  were  emptied,  and  the  store- 
houses began  to  be  drawn  upon ;  and  no  fresh  supply  or 
hope  of  supply  appeared.  Winter  passed  away,  and  spring 
returned,  so  early  and  so  beautiful  on  that  garden-like  coast, 


196  LECTURE   IV. 

sheltered  as  it  is  from  the  north  winds  by  its  belt  of  moun- 
tains, and  open  to  the  full  rays  of  the  southern  sun.  Spring 
returned,  and  clothed  the  hill  sides  within  the  lines  with  its 
fresh  verdure.  But  that  verdure  was  no  longer  the  mere 
delight  of  the  careless  eye  of  luxury,  refreshing  the  citizens 
by  its  liveliness  and  softness  when  they  rode  or  walked  up 
thither  from  the  city  to  enjoy  the  surpassing  beauty  of  the 
prospect.  The  green  hill-sides  were  now  visited  for  a  very 
different  object;  ladies  of  the  highest  rank  might  be  seen 
cutting  up  every  plant  which  it  was  possible  to  turn  to  food, 
and  bearing  home  the  common  weeds  of  our  road  sides  as  a 
most  precious  treasure.  The  French  general  pitied  the  distress 
of  the  people,  but  the  lives  and  strength  of  his  garrison  seemed 
to  him  more  important  than  the  lives  of  the  Genoese,  and  such 
provisions  as  remained  were  reserved  in  the  first  place  for 
the  French  army.  Scarcity  became  utter  want,  and  want 
became  famine.  In  the  most  gorgeous  palaces  of  that  gor- 
geous city,  no  less  than  in  the  humblest  tenements  of  its 
humblest  poor,  death  was  busy ;  not  the  momentary  death  of 
battle  or  massacre,  nor  the  speedy  death  of  pestilence,  but 
the  lingering  and  most  miserable  death  of  famine.  Infants 
died  before  their  parents'  eyes,  husbands  and  wives  lay  down 
to  expire  together.  A  man  whom  I  saw  at  Genoa  in  1825 
told  me  that  his  father  and  two  of  his  brothers  had  been 
starved  to  death  in  this  fatal  siege.  So  it  went  on,  till  in  the 
month  of  June,  when  Napoleon  had  already  descended  from 
the  Alps  into  the  plain  of  Lombardy,  the  misery  became  un- 
endurable, and  Massena  surrendered.  But  before  he  did  so, 
twenty  thousand  innocent  persons,  old  and  young,  women 
and  children,  had  died  by  the  most  horrible  of  deaths  which 
humanity  can  endure.  Other  norrors  which  occurred  be- 
sides during  this  blockade  I  pass  over;  the  agonizing  death 
of  twenty  thousand  innocent  and  helpless  persons  requires 
nothing  to  be  added  to  it.  (7) 


LECTURE    IV.  197 

Now  is  it  right  that  such  a  tragedy  as  this  should  take 
place,  and  that  the  laws  of  war  should  be  supposed  to  justify 
the  authors  of  it  ?  Conceive  having  been  a  naval  officer 
in  Lord  Keith's  squadron  at  that  time,  and  being  employed 
in  stopping  the  food  which  was  being  brought  for  the  relief 
of  such  misery.  For  the  thing  was  done  deliberately  ;  the 
helplessness  of  the  Genoese  was  known,  their  distress  was 
known  ;  it  was  known  that  they  could  not  force  Massena  to 
surrender;  it  was  known  that  they  were  dying  daily  by 
hundreds ;  yet  week  after  week,  and  month  after  month,  did 
the  British  ships  of  war  keep  their  iron  watch  along  all  the 
coast :  no  vessel  nor  boat  laden  with  any  article  of  provision 
could  escape  their  vigilance.  One  cannot  but  be  thankful 
that  Nelson  was  spared  from  commanding  at  this  horrible 
blockade  of  Genoa. 

Now  on  which  side  the  law  of  nations  should  throw  the 
guilt  of  most  atrocious  murder,  is  of  little  comparative  conse- 
quence, or  whether  it  should  attach  it  to  both  sides  equally ; 
but  that  the  deliberate  starving  to  death  of  twenty  thousand 
helpless  persons  should  be  regarded  as  a  crime  in  one  or  both 
of  the  parties  concerned  in  it,  seems  to  me  self-evident.  The 
simplest  course  would  seem  to  be  that  all  non-combatants 
should  be  allowed  to  go  out  of  a  blockaded  town,  and  that  the 
general  who  should  refuse  to  let  them  pass,  should  be  re- 
garded in  the  same  light  as  one  who  were  to  murder  his 
prisoners,  or  who  were  to  be  in  the  habit  of  butchering  women 
and  children.  For  it  i-s  not  true  that  war  only  looks  to  the 
speediest  and  most  effectual  way  of  attaining  its  object,  so 
that  as  the  letting  the  inhabitants  go  out  would  enable  the 
garrison  to  maintain  the  town  longer,  the  laws  of  war  author- 
ize the  keeping  them  in  and  starving  them.  Poisoning  wells 
might  be  a  still  quicker  method  of  reducing  a  place,  but  do 
the  laws  of  war  therefore  sanction  it  ?  I  shall  not  be  sup- 
posed for  a  moment  to  be  placing  the  guilt  of  the  individuals 

17* 


198  LECTURE    IV. 

concerned  in  the  two  cases  which  I  am  going  to  compare,  on 
an  equal  footing ;  it  would  be  most  unjust  to  do  so,  for  in  the 
one  case  they  acted,  as  they  supposed,  according  to  a  law 
which  made  what  they  did  their  duty.  But  take  the  cases 
themselves,  and  examine  them  in  all  their  circumstances  ; 
the  degree  of  suffering  inflicted,  the  innocence  and  helpless- 
ness of  the  sufferers,  the  interests  at  stake,  and  the  possibility 
of  otherwise  securing  them  ;  and  if  any  man  can  defend  the 
lawfulness  in  the  abstract  of  the  starvation  of  the  inhabitants 
of  Genoa,  I  will  engage  also  to  establish  the  lawfulness  of  the 
massacres  of  September. 

Other  points  of  the  received  law  of  nations  might  be  no- 
ticed,  and  more  especially  of  maritime  law,  which  require, 
to  say  the  least,  a  full  reconsideration.  They  will  suggest 
themselves  to  the  attentive  reader  of  history,  if  his  thoughts 
have  been  once  turned  in  that  direction.  And,  considering 
the  magnitude  of  the  interests  involved,  any  defect  in  national 
law  is  surely  no  less  important  than  a  defect  in  civil  law ; 
to  lend  a  sanction  to  the  passions  and  injustice  of  men  where 
they  operate  most  extensively,  is  a  sad  perversion  of  the  na- 
ture of  law  ;  it  is  that  corruption  of  the  noblest  thing  which  is 
itself  the  vilest.  But  in  these  inquiries,  amidst  all  our  con- 
demnation of  a  bad  law,  we  must  remember  that  its  very  evil 
consists  mainly  in  this,  that  it  throws  its  sanction  over  crime ; 
that  is,  that  men  commit  crime  as  a  thing  lawful.  The 
magnitude  of  the  evil  of  a  bad  law  is,  I  was  almost  going  to 
say,  the  measure  of  the  allowance  to  be  granted  to  the  indi- 
viduals whom  it  misleads ;  at  any  rate  it  greatly  diminishes 
their  guilt.  And  for  this  reason  I  chose  in  the  instances 
which  I  gave  of  faulty  national  law,  to  take  those  in  which 
our  countrymen  acted  upon  the  bad  law,  rather  than  those  in 
which  it  was  acted  upon  by  foreigners  or  enemies.  In  our 
own  case  we  are  willing  enough  to  make  that  allowance 
which  in  the  case  of  others  we  might  be  inclined  to  refuse. 


LECTURE    IV.  199 

Generally,  however,  I  confess,  that  amongst  ourselves,  and 
when  we  are  not  concerned  to  establish  our  own  just  claims 
to  the  respect  of  others,  I  think  that  it  is  more  useful  to  con- 
template our  own  national  faults  and  the  worthy  deeds  of 
other  nations,  than  to  take  the  opposite  course ;  or  even  to 
dwell  singly  upon  our  own  glories,  or  on  the  dishonour  of 
others.  For  there  can  be,  I  imagine,  no  danger  of  our  admi- 
ring our  neighbours  too  much,  or  ourselves  too  little.  It  can- 
not be  necessary  to  enlarge  before  an  English  audience  upon 
the  greatness  of  England,  whether  past  or  present :  it  cannot 
be  necessary  for  an  Englishman  to  express  in  so  many  words 
his  love  and  admiration  for  his  country.  It  is  because  Eng- 
land is  so  great,  and  our  love  for  our  country  is  so  deep  and 
so  just,  that  we  can  not  only  afford  to  dwell  upon  the  darker 
spots  in  our  history,  but  we  absolutely  require  them,  lest  our 
love  and  admiration  should  become  idolatrous ;  it  is  because 
we  are  only  too  apt  to  compare  foreign  nations  with  our- 
selves unfavourably,  that  it  is  absolutely  good  for  us  to  con- 
template what  they  have  suffered  unjustly  or  done  worthily. 
Connected  with  the  last  point  which  I  have  been  noticing, 
is  another  which  appears  to  me  of  importance  in  studying 
military  or  external  history,  and  that  is,  to  apprehend  cor- 
rectly in  every  war  what  are  the  merits  of  the  quarrel.  I  do 
not  mean  only  so  far  as  such  an  apprehension  is  essential  to 
our  sympathizing  rightly  with  either  of  the  parties  concerned 
in  it,  but  with  a  higher  object ;  that  we  may  see,  namely, 
what  have  been  ordinarily  the  causes  of  wars,  and  then  con- 
sider whether  they  have  been  sufficient  to  justify  recourse  to 
such  an  extreme  arbitrament.  For  as  I  speak  freely  of  the 
intense  interest  of  military  history,  and  the  great  sympathy 
due  to  the  many  heroic  qualities  which  war  calls  into  action, 
so  we  must  never  forget  that  war  is  after  all  a  very  great 
evil ;  and  though  I  believe  that  theoretically  the  Quakers  are 
wrong  in  pronouncing  all  wars  to  be  unjustifiable,  yet  I  con- 


200  LECTURE     V. 

fess  that  historically  the  exceptions  to  their  doctrine  have 
been  comparatively  few  •  that  is  to  say,  as  in  every  war  one 
party  I  suppose  must  be  to  blame,  so  in  most  wars  both  parties 
have  been  blameable  ;  and  the  wars  ought  never  to  have 
taken  place  at  all.  Two  cases  of  wars  where  both  parties 
appear  to  me  more  or  less  to  blame,  I  will  now  give  by  way 
of  example.  It  sometimes  happens,  especially  in  the  inter 
course  of  a  civilized  nation  with  barbarians,  that  the  subjects 
of  one  nation  persist  in  a  course  of  conduct  at  variance  with 
the  laws  of  the  other ;  and  that  the  party  thus  aggrieved  takes 
its  redress  into  its  own  hands  and  punishes  the  offenders,  sum- 
marily, with  over  severity  perhaps,  and  sometimes  mistaken, 
ly :  that  is,  the  individuals  punished  may  in  that  particular 
case  be  innocent ;  as  it  has  often  happened  that  when  soldiers 
fire  upon  a  riotous  crowd,  some  harmless  passers  by  are  the 
sufferers,  although  they  had  no  concern  whatever  in  the  riot. 
It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  party  originally  aggrieved  has 
now  given  some  just  cause  of  complaint  against  itself;  yet  it 
is  monstrous  in  the  original  aggressor  to  prosecute  his  quarrel 
forthwith  by  arms,  or  to  insist  peremptorily  on  receiving  satis- 
faction for  the  wrong  done  to  him,  without  entering  into  the 
question  of  the  previous  and  unprovoked  wrong  which  had 
been  done  by  him.  For  after  all,  the  balance  of  wrong  is 
not,  when  all  things  are  taken  into  the  account,  so  much  as 
brought  to  a  level :  the  original  debtor  is  the  debtor  still  ; 
some  counter  claims  he  has  upon  his  creditor ;  but  the  bal- 
ance of  the  account  is  against  him.  Yet  he  goes  to  war  as 
if  it  were  not  only  in  his  favour,  but  as  if  his  adversary  had 
suffered  no  wrong  at  all,  and  he  had  done  none. 

The  other  case  is  one  of  greater  difficulty,  and  has  been 
the  fruitful  parent  of  wars  continued  from  generation  to 
generation.  This  is  where  nations  suspect  each  other,  and 
the  suspicion  has  in  the  case  of  either  enough  to  justify  it. 
Thus  what  one  party  claims  as  a  security,  the  other  regards 


LECTURE    IV.  201 

as  a  fresh  aggression ;  and  so  the  quarrel  goes  on  intermi- 
nably. The  Punic  wars  in  ancient  history  are  one  instance 
of  this :  the  long  wars  between  France  and  the  coalesced 
powers  in  our  own  times  are  another.  At  a  given  moment 
in  the  contest  the  government  on  one  side  may  feel  sure  of 
its  own  honest  intentions,  and  suspect  with  justice  the  hostile 
disposition  of  its  rival.  But  in  all  fairness,  the  previous 
steps  of  the  struggle  must  be  reviewed ;  have  our  predeces- 
sors never  acted  in  such  a  way  as  to  inspire  suspicion  justly  ? 
We  stand  in  their  place,  the  inheritors  of  their  cause,  and  the 
suspicions  which  their  conduct  occasioned  still  survive  to- 
wards us.  Our  enemy  is  dealing  insincerely  with  us,  be- 
cause he  cannot  be  persuaded  that  we  mean  fairly  by  him. 
A  great  evil,  and  one  almost  endless,  if  each  party  refuses 
to  put  itself  in  the  other's  place,  and  presses  merely  the  actual 
fact  of  the  moment,  that  while  it  is  dealing  in  all  sincerity, 
its  adversary  is  meditating  only  deceit  and  hostility.  In 
such  cases  I  cannot  but  think  that  the  guilt  of  the  continued 
quarrel  must  be  divided,  not  equally  perhaps,  but  divided; 
between  both  the  belligerents. 

And  now  coming  to  the  mere  history  of  military  operation? 
themselves,  in  what  manner  may  a  common  reader  best  enter 
into  them,  and  read  them  with  interest  1  It  is  notorious,  ] 
believe,  that  our  ordinary  notions  of  wars  are  very  much 
those  which  we  find  in  the  accounts  of  the  Samnite  wars  in 
Livy.  (8)  We  remember  the  great  battles,  sometimes  with 
much  particularity ;  but  they  stand  in  our  memory  as  iso- 
lated events  ;  we  cannot  connect  them  with  each  other,  we 
know  not  what  led  to  them,  nor  what  was  their  bearing  on 
the  fate  of  the  campaign.  Sometimes,  it  is  true,  this  is  of  no 
great  consequence ;  for  the  previous  movements  were  no 
more  than  the  Homeric — 

Oi  <5'  ore  Sri  trxsfov  foav  fir'  &,\\jj\oiariv  ItivreS) 


202  LECTURE    IV. 

the  armies  marched  out  to  meet  each  other,  and  the  battle 
decided  every  thing.  But  in  complicated  wars  it  is  very 
different.  Take  for  instance  the  wars  of  Frederick  the 
Great ;  we  may  remember  that  he  was  defeated  at  Kolin,  at 
Hochkirchen,  and  at  Cunersdorf ;  that  he  was  victorious  at 
Rosbach,  at  Lissa,  at  Zorndorf,  and  at  Torgau ;  but  how  far 
are  we  still  from  comprehending  the  action  of  the  war,  and 
appreciating  his  extraordinary  ability.  To  do  this,  a  good 
map  is  essential ;  a  map  which  shall  exhibit  the  hills  of  a 
country,  its  principal  roads,  and  its  most  important  fortresses. 
To  understand  the  operations  of  the  Seven  Years'  War,  we 
must  comprehend  the  situation  of  the  Prussian  dominions 
with  respect  to  those  of  the  allies,  and  must  know  also  their 
geographical  character,  as  well  as  that  of  the  countries  im- 
mediately adjoining  them.  We  must  observe  the  importance 
of  Saxony,  as  covering  Prussia  on  the  side  of  Austria ;  the 
importance  of  Silesia,  as  running  in  deeply  within  what  may 
be  called  the  line  of  the  Austrian  frontier,  and  flanking  a 
large  part  of  Bohemia.  For  these  reasons  Frederick  began 
the  war  by  surprising  Saxony,  and  amidst  all  his  difficulties 
clung  resolutely  to  the  possession  of  Silesia.  His  vulnerable 
side  was  on  the  east  towards  Russia ;  and  had  the  Russian 
power  been  in  any  degree  such  as  it  became  afterwards,  he 
would  have  lost  Berlin  not  once  only,  but  permanently.  But 
the  Russian  armies  being  better  fitted  for  defence  than  offence, 
even  their  great  victory  of  Cunersdorf  was  followed  by  no 
important  consequences,  and  Frederick  was  able  generally 
to  leave  the  defence  of  his  eastern  frontiers  to  his  generals, 
and  to  devote  his  own  attention  to  the  great  struggle  with 
Austria  on  the  side  of  Saxony  and  Silesia. 

Connected  with  the  details  of  military  history,  and  in  itself 
in  many  respects  curious,  is  the  history,  so  far  as  it  can  be 
traced,  of  great  roads  and  fortresses ;  for  these,  like  all  other 
earthly  things,  change  from  age  to  age,  and  if  we  do  not 


LECTURE   17.  203 

know  or  observe  these  changes,  the  military  history  of  one 
period  will  be  almost  unintelligible,  if  judged  of  according  to 
the  roads  and  fortresses  of  another.  For  example,  there  are 
at  present  three  great  lines  of  communication  between  the 
northwest  of  Italy  and  the  Rhone  :  one  is  the  coast  road  from 
Nice  to  Marseilles,  and  Tarascon  or  Avignon ;  another  is 
the  road  over  Mont  Genis  upon  Montmeillan,  and  so  descend- 
ing the  valley  of  the  Isere  by  Grenoble  upon  Valence ;  a 
third  is  the  road  so  well  known  to  all  travellers,  from  Mont- 
meillan upon  Chamberri,  and  from  thence  by  Les  Echelles 
upon  Lyons.  But  in  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
I  find  in  the  work  of  an  Italian,  named  Gratarolo,  who  wrote 
a  sort  of  guide  for  travellers,  that  the  principal  line  of  com- 
munication between  Italy  and  the  Rhone  was  one  which  it 
now  requires  a  good  map  even  to  trace ;  it  crossed  the  Alps 
by  the  Mont  Genevre,  descended  for  a  certain  distance  along 
the  valley  of  the  Durance,  and  then  struck  off  to  the  right, 
and  went  straight  towards  Avignon,  by  a  little  place  called 
Sault,  and  by  Carpentras.  The  abandonment  in  many  in- 
stances of  the  line  of  the  Roman  roads  in  Italy  is  owing,  as  I 
have  been  informed,  to  the  extreme  insecurity  of  travelling 
during  a  long  period ;  so  that  according  to  the  description  of 
a  similar  state  of  things  in  Scripture,  "  the  highways  were 
unoccupied,  and  the  travellers  walked  through  by-ways*" 
Merchants  and  those  who  were  obliged  to  go  from  place  to 
place  followed  by-roads,  as  nearly  parallel  as  they  could 
find  them  to  the  line  of  the  great  roads ;  and  when  a  better 
state  of  things  returned,  the  by-roads  were  become  so  much 
in  use,  that  they  remained  the  ordinary  lines  of  communica- 
tion, and  the  great  roads  of  the  Roman  time  went  to  ruin. 
So  again  with  fortresses ;  when  Charles  the  Fifth  invaded 
Champagne  in  the  sixteenth  century,  his  army  was  resisted 
by  the  little  town  of  St.  Dizier,  which  is  now  perfectly  open, 
and  incapable  of  stopping  an  enemy  for  half  an  hour ;  while 


204  LECTURE    IT. 

the  fortresses  which  resisted  the  Prussians  in  1792,  Longwy 
and  Verdun,  seem  to  have  been  in  Charles  the  Fifth's  days 
of  no  consequence  whatever.  The  great  Piedmontese  for- 
tress at  this  day  is  Alessandria,  which  I  think  hardly  occurs 
in  the  military  history  of  Piedmont  previously  to  the  wars  of 
the  French  revolution.  On  the  other  hand,  Turin  itself, 
which  was  besieged  so  elaborately  by  Marshal  Marsin  in 
1706,  and  so  effectually  relieved  by  Prince  Eugene's  victo- 
rious assault  on  the  besiegers'  lines,  and  the  citadel  of  which 
was  a  fortress  of  some  importance  so  late  as  1799,  is  now 
wholly  an  open  town,  and  its  ramparts  are  become  a  pro- 
menade. 

When  speaking  of  the  altered  lines  of  roads,  one  is  natu- 
rally led  to  think  of  the  roads  over  great  mountain  chains, 
of  which  so  many  have  been  newly  opened  in  our  own  days; 
and  a  few  words  on  mountain  warfare,  which  has  been  called 
the  poetry  of  the  military  art,  shall  conclude  this  lecture. 
But  by  mountain  warfare  I  do  not  mean  the  mere  attack  or 
defence  of  a  mountain  pass,  such  as  we  read  of  in  the  Tyro- 
lese  insurrection  of  1809 ;  but  the  attack  and  defence  of  a 
whole  mountain  country,  comprehending  a  line  perhaps  of 
eighty  or  a  hundred  miles.  You  have  here  almost  all  the 
elements  of  interest  in  war  met  together ;  the  highest  exer- 
cise of  skill  in  the  general  in  the  combination  of  his  opera- 
tions ;  the  greatest  skill  and  energy  in  the  officers  and  soldiers 
in  overcoming  or  turning  to  account  the  natural  difficulties 
of  the  ground  ;  and  the  picturesque  and  poetical  charm  of 
the  grouping  together  of  art  and  nature,  of  the  greatest  works 
and  efforts  of  man  with  the  highest  magnificence  of  natural 
scenery.  One  memorable  instance  of  this  grand  mountain 
warfare  was  the  contest  in  the  Pyrenees  in  1813 ;  another 
may  be  found  in  Napoleon's  operations  in  the  Apennines,  in 
the  beginning  of  the  campaign  of  1796,  and  those  in  the  val- 
ley of  the  Adige  in  January,  1797  •  a  third,  and  in  some  re- 


LECTURE    IV.  205 

spects  the  most  striking  of  all,  was  the  struggle  in  Switzer- 
land in  1799,  when  the  eastern  side  of  Switzerland  was  made 
as  it  were  one  vast  fortress,  which  the  French  defended 
against  the  attacks  of  the  allies.  In  such  warfare,  a  general 
must  bear  constantly  in  mind  the  whole  anatomy  of  the 
mountains  which  he  is  defending  or  attacking:  the  geo- 
graphical distance  of  the  several  valleys  and  passes  from 
each  other,  their  facilities  of  lateral  communication,  their 
exact  bearings  and  windings,  as  well  as  the  details  of  their 
natural  features,  and  resources.  He  must  also  conceive  the 
disposition  of  his  enemy's  army,  the  force  at  each  particular 
point,  and  the  facilities  of  massing  a  large  force  at  any  one 
point  in  a  given  time.  For  a  blow  struck  with  effect  at  any 
one  spot  is  felt  along  the  whole  line ;  and  the  strongest  posi- 
tions are  sometimes  necessarily  abandoned  without  firing  a 
shot,  merely  because  a  point  has  been  carried  at  the  distance 
of  thirty  or  forty  miles  from  them,  by  which  the  enemy  may 
penetrate  within  their  line  and  threaten  their  rear.  And 
surely  the  moving  forty  or  fifty  thousand  men  with  such  pre- 
cision, that  marching  from  many  different  quarters  they  may 
be  all  brought  together  at  a  given  hour  on  a  given  spot,  is  a 
very  magnificent  combination,  if  we  consider  how  many 
points  must  be  embraced  at  once  in  the  mind,  in  order  to  its 
conception,  and  how  many  more  are  essential  to  its  successful 
execution.  But  lest  I  should  seem  here  forgetting  my  own 
caution,  and  imitating  the  presumption  of  Hannibal's  sophist, 
I  will  only  refer  you  to  General  Mathieu  Dumas'  History  of 
the  Campaigns  of  1799  and  1800,  in  which,  illustrated  as  it 
is  by  its  notes,  you  will  find  a  very  clear  account  of  the  par- 
ticular contest  in  Switzerland,  and  some  general  remarks  on 
mountain  warfare,  very  clear  and  very  interesting.  (9) 

The  subject  is  so  vast  that  it  would  not  be  easy  to  exhaust 
it ;  but  enough  has  been  said  perhaps  to  fulfil  my  immediate 
object,  that  of  noticing  some  of  the  questions  and  difficulties 

18 


206  LECTURE    IV. 

which  occur  in  military  history ;  and  I  have  lingered  long 
enough  ,upon  ground  on  which  my  right  as  an  unmilitary 
man  to  enter  at  all  may  possibly  be  questioned.  Here  then 
I  shall  end  what  I  have  to  say  with  regard  to  external  history : 
it  follows  that  we  should  penetrate  a  little  deeper,  and  endea- 
vour to  find  some  clue  to  guide  us  through  the  labyrinth  of 
opinions  and  parties,  political  and  religious,  which  constitute 
at  onoo  tta  difficulty  and  the  interest  of  internal  history. 


NOTES 


TO 


LECTURE     IV. 


NOTE  1.— Page  183. 

IN  one  of  the  prefaces  to  his  History  of  Rome,  Dr.  Arnold  writes : 
*  *  "  I  am  well  aware  of  the  great  difficulty  of  giving  liveliness  to 
a  narrative  which  necessarily  gets  all  its  facts  at  second-hand. 
And  a  writer  who  has  never  been  engaged  in  any  public  transac- 
tions, either  of  peace  or  war,  must  feel  this  especially.  One  who 
is  himself  a  statesman  and  orator,  may  relate  the  political  contests 
even  of  remote  ages  with  something  of  the  spirit  of  a  contemporary ; 
for  his  own  experience  realizes  to  him  in  a  great  measure  the  scenes 
and  the  characters  which  he  is  describing.  And  in  like  manner  a 
soldier  or  a  seaman  can  enter  fully  into  the  great  deeds  of  ancient 
warfare ;  for  although  in  outward  form  ancient  battles  and  sieges 
may  differ  from  those  of  modern  times,  yet  the  genius  of  the  general 
and  the  courage  of  the  soldier,  the  call  for  so  many  of  the  highest 
qualities  of  our  nature,  which  constitutes  the  enduring  moral  interest 
of  war,  are  common  alike  to  all  times  ;  and  he  who  has  fought  under 
Wellington  has  been  in  spirit  an  eye-witness  of  the  campaigns  of 
Hannibal.  But  a  writer  whose  whole  experience  has  been  con- 
fined to  private  life  and  to  peace,  has  no  link  to  connect  him  with 
the  actors  and  great  deeds  of  ancient  history,  except  the  feelings  of 
our  common  humanity.  He  cannot  realize  civil  contests  or  battles 
with  the  vividness  of  a  statesman  and  a  soldier ;  he  can  but  enter 
into  them  as  a  man  ;  and  his  general  knowledge  of  human  nature, 
his  love  of  great  and  good  actions,  his  sympathy  with  virtue,  his  ab- 
horrence of  vice,  can  alone  assist  him  in  making  himself  as  it  were 
a  witness  of  what  he  attempts  to  describe.  But  these  even  by 


208  NOTES 

themselves  will  do  much ;  and  if  an  historian  feels  as  a  man  and  as 
a  citizen,  there  is  hope  that,  however  humble  his  experience,  he 
may  inspire  his  readers  with  something  of  his  own  interest  in  the 
events  of  his  history." 

History  of  Rome,  vol.  ii.  Preface 


NOTE  2.— Page  183. 

"  It  is  curious  to  observe  how  readily  men  mistake  accidental 
distinctions  for  such  as  are  really  essential.  A  lively  writer,  the 
author  of  the  '  Bubbles  from  the  Brunnen  of  Nassau,'  ridicules  the 
study  of  what  is  called  ancient  history ;  and  as  an  instance  of  ita 
uselessness,  asks  what  lessons  in  the  art  of  war  can  be  derived 
from  the  insignificant  contests  which  took  place  before  the  invention 
of  gunpowder.  Now  it  so  happens  that  one  who  well  knew  what 
military  lessons  were  instructive,  the  emperor  Napoleon,  has  se- 
lected out  of  the  whole  range  of  history  the  campaigns  of  seven 
generals  only,  as  important  to  be  studied  by  an  officer  professionally 
in  all  their  details  ;  and  of  these  seven  three  belong  to  the  times  of 
Greece  and  Rome,  namely,  Alexander,  Hannibal,  and  Caesar.  Se*1. 
Napoleon's  '  Melanges  Historiques,'  tome  ii.  p.  10." 

Arnold's  Thucydides,  vol.  iii.  Preface,  p.  20,  note. 

NOTE  3. — Page  185. 

When  Mentz  was  taken  by  the  allied  army  in  1793,  the  French 
garrison  was  allowed  to  march  out,  without  being  made  prisoners 
of  war,  and  only  under  a  stipulation  that  they  were  not  to  serve 
against  the  allies  for  a  year.  The  consequence  of  which  was,  that 
these  disciplined  veterans  were  afterwards  hurried,  under  the  com- 
mand of  Kleber,  into  La  Vendee,  and  against  them,  as  Dr.  Arnold 
has  observed,  the  heroism  and  enthusiasm  of  the  Vendeans,  before 
victorious,  was  quickly  found  an  unequal  match.  Goethe,  who  was 
present  with  the  Duke  of  Brunswick  during  the  siege,  has  given  a 
curious  account  of  the  personal  appearance  of  the  veterans  by  whom 
this  important  fortress  of  Mayence  had  been  stoutly  defended.  On 
one  occasion,  riding  over  the  ground  after  a  bold  sortie  in  the  night  by 
the  besieged  garrison,  he  says, "  The  sun  rose  with  a  dull  light,  and 


TO    LECTURE    IV.  209 

the  sacrifices  of  the  night  were  lying  side  by  side.  Our  German  cui- 
rassiers, men  of  gigantic  stature  and  well  clothed,  presented  a  strange 
contrast  with  the  dwarfish,  insignificant-looking,  tattered  Sanscu- 
lottes." When  the  garrison  surrendered  and  marched  out,  he  after- 
wards adds,  "  Never  was  any  thing  stranger  than  the  way  in  which 
they  came  upon  our  sight ;  a  column  of  Marseillois,  all  small  and 
black-looking,  and  clad  in  particoloured  rags,  came  pattering  along, 
as  if  King  Edwin  had  opened  his  mountain  and  sent  forth  his  merry 
host  of  dwarfs.  After  these  followed  troops  of  a  more  regular  de- 
scription, with  serious  and  dissatisfied  visages,  with  no  look  how- 
ever of  being  ashamed  or  out  of  heart.  But  what  had  the  most 
striking  appearance  was  when  the  chasseurs  a  cheval  rode  forward 
in  their  turn.  They  had  advanced  in  silence  to  our  station,  when 
their  band  struck  up  the  Marseillaise  march.  This  revolutionary 
Te  Deum  has,  under  any  circumstances,  somewhat  of  a  mournful 
expression,  let  it  be  played  in  ever  so  quick  time,  but  on  this  occa- 
sion they  gave  it  a  slow  movement,  and  so  came  slowly  along.  It 
was  an  impressive  and  fearful  sight  when  the  horsemen,  long,  lean 
men,  all  with  a  veteran  look,  rode  slowly  forward,  with  faces  as 
solemn  and  mournful  as  the  tones  of  their  music.  Individually  they 
might  have  reminded  one  of  Don  Quixote,  but  as  a  body  their  ap- 
pearance was  such  as  to  inspire  awe."  "  Belagerung  von  Maintz" 


NOTE  4.— Page  187. 

"  I  never  felt  more  keenly  the  wish  to  see  the  peace  between  the 
two  countries  (England  and  France)  perpetual ;  never  could  I  be 
more  indignant  at  the  folly  and  wickedness  which  on  both  sides  of 
the  water  are  trying  to  rekindle  the  flames  of  war.  The  one  effect 
of  the  last  war  ought  to  be  to  excite  in  both  nations  the  greatest 
mutual  respect.  France  with  the  aid  of  half  Europe  could  not 
conquer  England  ;  England,  with  the  aid  of  all  Europe,  never  could 
have  overcome  France,  had  France  been  zealous  and  united  in  Na- 
poleon's quarrel.  When  Napoleon  saw  kings  and  princes  bowing 
before  him  at  Dresden,  Wellington  was  advancing  victoriously  in 
Spain;  when  a  million  of  men  in  1815  were  invading  France,  Na- 
poleon engaged  for  three  days  with  two  armies,  each  singly  equal 

18* 


210  „  NOTES 

to  his  own,  and  was  for  two  days  victorious.  Equally  and  utterly 
false  are  the  follies  uttered  by  silly  men  of  both  countries,  about 
the  certainty  of  one  beating  the  other.  'Ou  *6\v  hafipti  av&pwtQs 
AvSfAmy,  is  especially  applicable  here.  When  Englishmen  and 
Frenchmen  meet  in  war,  each  may  know  that  they  will  meet  in 
the  other  all  a  soldier's  qualities,  skill,  activity,  and  undaunted  cour- 
age, with  bodies  able  to  do  the  bidding  of  the  spirit  either  in  action 
or  in  endurance.  England  and  France  may  do  each  other  incalcu- 
lable mischief  by  going  to  war,  both  physically  and  morally ;  but 
they  can  gain  for  themselves,  or  hope  to  gain,  nothing.  It  were  an 
accursed  wish  in  either  to  wish  to  destroy  the  other,  and  happily 
the  wish  would  be  as  utterly  vain  as  it  would  be  wicked."  1840. 
Life  and  Correspondence,  Appendix  C,  ix.  19. 


The  allusion,  both  in  the  text  and  in  the  above  extract,  to  King 
Archidamus,  refers  to  some  of  the  words  of  cautious  counsel  he 
gave  to  his  countrymen  in  the  public  deliberations  held  at  Sparta 
before  the  hostilities  in  the  Peloponnesian  War — vo\6  re  Staffpuv  06 

Set   vopl^tiv   avOpvirov  avBpuirov,  KpaTiffTOV  if  tlvai   SffTis  iv  rots  HixryicaioTdTots 

vatScvsrai,  Thucydides,  i.  84  ;  or  in  Dr.  Arnold's  paraphrase — "  One 
man  is  practically  much  the  same  as  another  ;  or  if  there  be  any 
difference,  it  is  that  he  who  has  been  taught  what  is  most  needful, 
and  has  never  troubled  himself  with  superfluous  accomplishments, 
is  the  best  and  most  valuable." 


General  Dumas,  in  a  note  in  the  fourth  volume  of  his  "  Precis  des 
Evenemens  Militaires"  alludes  to  the  peculiar  vivacity  of  French 
character  as  an  important  element  in  sustaining  the  national  spirit 
under  the  depression  of  military  reverses,  and  gives  a  pleasant  in- 
stance of  the  expression  of  such  feeling  : 

"Al'epoque  de  la  paix  de  1762,  quand  les  Anglais  parvinrent, 
par  les  malheurs  de  la  guerre  sur  le  continent,  a  humilier  la  marine 
francaise,  Favart,  connu  seulement  par  quelques  ouvrages  drama- 
tiques  du  genre  le  plus  leger,  mais  pleins  de  grace,  inspire  cette 
fois  par  cet  esprit  public  recele  dans  le  cceur  des  Fran^ais  comme 
le  feu  dans  le  caillou,  fit  le  couplet  suivant,  qui  merite  d'etre  con- 
serve, et  ne  saurait  etre  reproduit  plus  a  propos  : 


TO    LECTURE    IV.  211 

'  Le  coq  francais  est  le  coq  de  la  gloire ; 
Par  les  revers  il  n'est  point  abattu  ; 
II  chante  fort,  s'il  gagne  la  victoire ; 
Encor  plus  fort  quand  il  est  bien  battu : 
Le  coq  francais  est  le  coq  de  la  gloire ; 
Toujours  chanter  est  sa  grande  vertu, 
Est-il  imprudent,  est-il  sage  ? 
C'est  ce  qu'on  ne  peut  definir  ; 
Mais  qui  ne  perd  jamais  courage, 
Se  rend  maitre  de  1'avenir." 


Dr.  Arnold  has  noticed  the  resemblance  of  Athenian  and 
French  vivacity,  in  preserving  unbroken  self-confidence  amidst  the 
greatest  disasters,  and  that  Favart's  epigram  is  almost  a  paraphrase 
of  the  language  of  the  Corinthians  as  applied  to  the  Athenians — - 

"  xparovvres  re  TWV  fxOp&v  eirt   irAetorov  t%ipxpvTai)  KOI  viKutpevoi  tit1 
Thucydides,  book  i.  70,  note. 


NOTE  5. — Page  190. 

In  one  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington's  dispatches,  dated  at  St.  Jean 
de  Luz,  1st  Jan.,  1814,  he  remarks  to  Earl  Bathurst,  "  It  is  a  cu- 
rious circumstance  that  we  are  the  protectors  of  the  property  of 
the  inhabitants  against  the  plunder  of  their  own  armies  ;  and  their 
cattle,  property,  etc.,  are  driven  into  our  lines  for  protection." 

The  difficulty  in  preventing  plunder  was  chiefly  felt  with  regard 
to  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  troops,  who  were  under  violent 
temptation,  now  they  were  on  French  ground,  after  having  witnessed 
such  havoc  and  desolation  by  pillaging  in  their  own  countries. 
The  following  characteristic  letter  of  Wellington's  was  written  on 
the  occasion  to  the  general  of  the  Spanish  forces. 

"  St.  Jean  de  Luz,  23d  Decent.,  1813. 

"  To  GENERAL  MORILLO — 

"  Before  I  gave  the  orders  of  the  th,  of  which  you  and  the 

officers  under  your  command  have  made  such  repeated  complaints, 
I  warned  you  repeatedly  of  the  misconduct  of  your  troops,  in  direct 
disobedience  of  my  orders,  which  I  told  you  I  could  not  permit ; 
and  I  desired  you  to  take  measures  to  prevent  it. 

"  I  have  sent  orders  to  countermand  those  which  I  gave  on  the 


212  NOTES 

18th ;  but  I  give  you  notice  that  whatever  may  be  the  consequence 
I  shall  repeat  those  orders,  if  your  troops  are  not  made,  by  theii 
officers,  to  conduct  themselves  as  well-disciplined  soldiers  ought. 

"I  did  not  lose  thousands  of  men  to  bring  the  army  under  my 
command  into  the  French  territory,  in  order  that  the  soldiers  might 
plunder  and  ill-treat  the  French  peasantry,  in  positive  disobedience 
to  my  orders ;  and  I  beg  that  you  and  your  officers  will  understand 
that  I  prefer  to  have  a  small  army,  that  will  obey  my  orders  and 
preserve  discipline,  to  a  large  one,  that  is  disobedient  and  undisci- 
plined ;  and  that  if  the  measures  which  I  am  obliged  to  adopt  to 
enforce  obedience  and  good  order,  occasion  the  loss  of  men,  and 
the  reduction  of  my  force,  it  is  totally  indifferent  to  me ;  and  the 
fault  rests  with  those  who,  by  the  neglect  of  their  duty,  suffer  then 
soldiers  to  commit  disorders  which  must  be  prejudicial  to  their 
country. 

"  I  cannot  be  satisfied  with  professions  of  obedience.  My  orders 
must  be  really  obeyed,  and  strictly  carried  into  execution ;  and  if  I 
cannot  obtain  obedience  in  one  way,  I  will  in  another,  or  I  will  not 
command  the  troops  which  disobey  me." 

In  a  letter  to  the  Portuguese  General  Freyre,  Wellington  writes 
in  French  as  characteristic  as  his  English :  *  *  "  pour  moi,  je 
declare  que  je  ne  desire  pas  un  commandement,  ni  1'union  des  na- 
tions, si  1'un  ou  1'autre  doit  etre  fonde  sur  le  pillage.  J'ai  perdu 
20,000  hommes  dans  cette  campagne,  et  ce  n'est  pas  pour  que  le 
General  Morillo,  ni  qui  que  ce  soit,  puisse  venir  piller  les  paysans 
Francais ;  et,  ou  je  commande,  je  declare  hautement  que  je  ne  le 
permettrai  pas.  Si  on  veut  piller,  qu'on  nomme  un  autre  a  com- 
mander ;  parceque,  moi,  je  declare  que,  si  on  est  sous  mes  ordres, 
il  ne  faut  pas  piller. 

"  Vous  avez  des  grandes  armees  en  Espagne ;  et  si  on  veut 
piller  les  paysans  Francais,  on  n'a  qu'a  m'dter  le  commandement, 
et  entrer  en  France.  Je  couvrirai  1'Espagne  centre  les  malheurs 
qui  en  seront  le  resultat ;  c'est  a  dire,  que  vos  armees,  quelques 
grandes  qu'elles  puissent  etre,  ne  pourront  pas  rester  en  France 
pendant  15  jours.  *  * 

"  Je  pourrais  dire  quelque  chose  aussi  en  justification  de  ce  que 
j'ai  fait,  qui  regarderait  la  politique  ;  mais  j'ai  assez  dit,  et  je  vous 
repete,  qu'il  m'est  absolument  indifferent  que  je  commande  urie 


TO    LECTURE    IV  213 

grande  ou  une  petite  armee ;   mais  que,  qu'elle  soit  grande  ou 
netite,  il  faut  qu'elle  m'obeisse,  et  surtout  qu'elle  ne  pille  pas." 

Wellington's  'Dispatches  and  General  Orders,'  863. 


NOTE  6.— Page  192. 

*  *  "  The  manner  of  war,  which  affords  most  opportunity  for  per- 
sonal prowess,  and  requires  most  individual  exertion,  calls  forth 
more  personal  feeling,  and,  consequently,  fiercer  passions.  How 
much  more  murderous  would  battles  be,  if  they  were  decided  by 
the  sword  and  bayonet ;  how  few  prisoners  would  be  taken,  and 
how  little  mercy  shown ! 

"  Monlesinos.  In  proof  of  this,  more  Englishmen  fell  at  Tow- 
ton,  than  in  any  of  Marlborough's  battles,  or  at  Waterloo. 

"  Sir  Thomas  More.  In  war,  then,  it  is  manifestly  better  that 
men,  in  general,  should  act  in  masses  as  machines,  than  with  an 
individual  feeling. 

"  Montesinos.  I  remember  to  have  read  or  heard  of  a  soldier  in 
our  late  war,  who  was  one  day  told  by  his  officer  to  take  aim  when 
he  fired,  and  make  sure  of  his  man.  '- 1  cannot  do  it,  sir.'  was  his 
reply.  '  I  fire  into  their  ranks,  and  that  does  as  well ;  but  to  single 
out  one  among  them,  and  mark  him  for  death,  would  lie  upon  my 
mind  afterwards.'  The  man  who  could  feel  thus,  was  worthy  of  a 
better  station  than  that  in  which  his  lot  had  been  assigned. 

"  Sir  Thomas  More.  And  yet,  Montesinos,  such  a  man  was 
well  placed,  if  not  for  present  welfare,  for  his  lasting  good.  A 
soul  that  can  withstand  the  hearthardening  tendencies  of  a  military 
life,  is  strengthened  and  elevated  by  it.  In  what  other  station 
could  he  have  attained  that  quiet  dignity  of  mind,  that  conscious- 
ness of  moral  strength,  which  is  possessed  by  those  who,  living 
daily  in  the  face  of  death,  live  also  always  in  the  fear  of  God  ?" 

Southey's  'Colloquies,'  vol.  i.,  p.  210. 


NOTE  7. — Page  196. 

A  detailed  and  graphic  description  of  the  sufferings  and  horrors 
of  the  siege  of  Genoa,  is  given  in  Botta's  History  of  Italy,  chap- 
*er  19. 


214  NOTES 


NOTE  8.— Page  201. 

*  *  "Of  the  Samnite  people  we  can  gain  no  distinct  notions 
whatever.     Unknown  and  unnoticed  by  the  early  Greek  writers, 
they  had  been  well  nigh  exterminated  before  the  time  of  those 
Roman  writers  whose  works  have  come  down  to  us ;  and  in  the 
Augustan  age,  nothing  survived  of  them  but  a  miserable  remnant, 
retaining  no  traceable  image  of  the  former  state  of  the  nation. 
Our  knowledge  of  the  Samnites  is  literally  limited  to  the  single 
fact,  that  they  were  a  brave  people,  who  clung  resolutely  to  their 
national  independence.  **  The  very  story  of  their  wars  with  Rome, 
having  been  recorded  by  no  contemporary  historian,  has  been  cor- 
rupted, as  usual,  by  the  Roman  vanity ;  and  neither  the  origin  of 
the  contest,  nor  its  circumstances,  nor  the  terms  of  the  several 
treaties  which  were  made  before  its  final  issue,  have  been  related 
truly. 

*  *  "  Every  step  in  the  Samnite  and  Latin  wars  has  been  so  dis- 
guised by  the  Roman  annalists,  that  a  probable  narrative  of  these 
events  can  only  be  given  by  a  free  correction  of  their  falsifications. 
The  case  of  Capua  applying  for  aid  to  Rome  against  the  Samnites, 
was  exactly  that  of  Corcyra  asking  help  from  Athens  against  Cor- 
inth. *  *  So  truly  is  real  history  a  lesson  of  universal  application, 
that  we  should  understand  the  war  between  Rome  and  Samnium  far 
better  from  reading  Thucydides'  account  of  the  war  between  Cor 
inth  and  Corcyra,  than  from  Livy's  corrupted  story  of  the  very 
events  themselves. 

*  *  "  Livy  himself  (viii.  40)  deplores  the  want  of  all  contempo- 
rary writers  for  the  times  of  the  Samnite  wars,  as  one  great  cause 
of  the  hopeless  confusion  in  which  the  story  of  those  wars  was 

involved." 

History  of  Rome,  vol.  ii.,  chap,  xxviii. 

NOTE  9. — Page  205. 

"  On  s'etonnera  que  tant  de  barrieres,  qui  passaient  pour  etre  des 
obstacles  insurmontables  a  la  marche  d'une  armee,  aient  ete  forcees, 
e*  que  la  defense  opiniatre  et  tres  active  d'un  nombre  de  troupes, 
que  certainement  on  eut  autrefois  juge  surabondant  pour  fermer 


TO    LECTURE    IV.  215 

tous  ces  passages,  n'aient  pas  arrete  plus  long-temps  1'armee  at- 
taquante.  On  demandera  s'il  y  avait  plus  d'ardeur  dans  1'attaque, 
moins  de  vigueur  et  de  Constance  dans  la  defense  ;  si  Ton  employa 
de  nouvelles  armes,  de  nouveaux  moyens  dans  les  combats ;  si  les 
rapports  et  les  applications  des  manoeuvres  des  diverses  armes  aux 
differentes  natures  de  pays  et  de  terrain  furent  changes  1  Non,  sans 
doute,  et  tres  vraisemblablement  1'art  de  la  guerre  avait  deja  atteint, 
sous  tous  ces  rapports,  son  plus  haut  periode.  Le  Cesar  de  notre 
£ge,  Frederic  II.,  avait  laisse  peu  de  decouvertes  a  faire,  ou  a  per- 
fectionner  dans  la  tactique  moderne. 

"  Mais  a  mesure  que  les  combinaisons  generates  se  sont  etendues, 
il  en  a  ete  des  postes  les  plus  forts,  et  des  lieux  reputes  inexpugna- 
bles  dans  les  pays  de  montagnes,  comme  des  places  dans  les  pays 
de  plaine  :  si  ces  postes  n'assurent  la  possession  des  sommites  les 
plus  hautes  et  les  plus  escarpees,  s'ils  ne  sont  la  clef  des  moindres 
interstices  dans  la  chalne,  celle  des  premiers  passages  ouverts  par 
les  eaux,  et  qui,  s'agrandissant  peu  a  peu,  et  s'aplanissant  en  suivant 
leur  cours,  donnent  Pentree  des  vallees  fertiles  et  etendues ;  ils  n'ont 
qu'une  importance  relative  et  momentanee. 

"  Depuis  que  les  voyageurs  ont  fraye  des  sentiers  a  travers  les 
abimes  de  glaces,  depuis  que  de  nouvelles  regions  ont  ete  explorees, 
1'art  de  la  guerre,  qui  s'empare  de  tout,  qui  s'accroit  de  tous  les 
progres  de  1'esprit  humain,  a  fait  tenter  de  nouveaux  hasards,  a  fait 
faire  de  nouvelles  experiences ;  et  le  talent  et  1'audace  militaires 
n'ont  pas  du  exciter  les  hommes  a  des  efforts  moindres,  que  ceux 
qu'inspirait  1'amour  des  sciences  ou  la  simple  curiosite  des  voyageurs, 

"  Des  qu'on  a  su  gravir  les  cimes  glacees  des  Alpes,  et  porter 
des  corps  de  troupes  et  de  1'artillerie  par  des  sentiers,  a  peine 
tentes  par  les  plus  intrepides  chasseurs,  on  a  bient6t  forme  de 
grands  plans  d'attaque  et  de  defense,  comme  la  nature  avait  elle- 
meme  lie  les  aretes  et  les  hauteurs  moyennes  aux  chaines  et  aux 
masses  principales ;  on  a  surpris  ses  secrets ;  on  a  reconnu  son 
ordre  immuable  jusque  dans  ses  caprices  les  plus  bizarres ;  le  chaos 
des  grandes  Alpes  a  ete  debrouille,  les  cartes  topographiques  per- 
fectionnees,  les  moindres  details  recueillis  ;  on  a  figure  des  reliefs 
avec  un  art  et  une  precision  inconnus  jusqu'a  nos  jours.  Cette  con- 
naissance  exacte  de  la  grande  charpente,  de  V osteologie  des  monta- 
gnes, (si  on  veut  nous  permetter  cette  expression,)  a  inspire  aux 


216  NOTES 

generaux  et  aux  officiers  d'etat  major  des  idees  plus  grandes  et 
plus  simples.  Les  communications  plus  pratiquees  ont  ete  exa- 
minees avec  plus  d'attention ;  enfin,  il  s'est  etabli  une  nouvelle 
echelle  pour  les  operations  dans  la  guerre  de  montagnes  ;  on  a  ose 
detacher  des  corps  a  de  grandes  distances,  pour  s'assurer  du  point 
qui  rendait  maitre  des  grands  intervalles. 

"  Ces  avantages  furent  si  bien  saisis  de  part  et  d'autre  dans  la 
guerre  de  Suisse,  que  les  coups  portes  sur  la  frontiere  de  Tyrol  et 
des  Grisons  a  trente  et  quarante  lieues  des  positions  centrales  des 
armees,  etaient  ressentis  a  1'instant,  obligeaient  a  faire  des  mouve- 
mens,  faisaient  changer  les  desseins,  comme  si  ces  divisions  se- 
parees  par  tant  de  difficultes,  par  tant  de  retranchemens  naturels, 
avaient  ete  contiguees. 

"  Aucun  obstacle  ne  pouvant  arreter  le  mouvement  general,  du 
moins  assez  long-temps  pour  obliger  le  parti  superieur  en  force  a 
se  departir  du  plan  simple  d'operations,  qu'on  pourrait  appeler  le 
plan  naturel,  et  qui  consiste  a  deborder  les  ailes  de  son  ennemi, 
tourner  et  ruiner  leurs  appuis,  il  en  est  resulte  que,  dans  la  guerre 
de  montagnes,  la  force  des  postes  et  des  positions  ne  balance  plus 
autant  qu'autrefois  la  superiorite  du  nombre. 

"  NouS  pensons  que  le  nouveau  systeme  de  guerre  de  postes, 
dans  les  actions  generales  entre  toutes  les  parties  des  armees  op- 
posees,  a  recu  un  grand  developpement  dans  la  guerre  de  Suisse, 
et  qu'il  est  aussi  utile  qu'interessant  d'observer,  sous  ces  rapports, 
les  succes  et  les  fevers,  les  fautes  commises  et  les  traits  d'habilete. 
Nous  laissons  a  nos  lecteurs  le  soin  d'appliquer  ces  observations 
aux  exemples  qui  les  justifient ;  les  plus  remarquables  se  trouvent 
dans  la  rapide  invasion  du  pays  des  Grisons,  dans  les  operations  du 
general  Lecourbe,  et  dans  celles  des  generaux  Laudon  et  Belle- 
garde,  que  nous  avons  rapportees ;  enfin,  dans  la  premiere  retraite 
du  general  Massena,  force  de  concentrer  ses  forces  sur  Zurich,  de 
replier  sa  droite  en-deca  du  Mont  Saint-Gothard  et  des  petits  can- 
tons, et  de  ceder  a  1'Archiduc  en  moins  de  quinze  jours,  presque 
tout  le  cours  du  Rhin  et  la  moitie  du  territoire  de  la  Suisse." 

Dumas:  "  Precis  des  Evcnemens  Militaires,"  i.  ch.  3me. 

"Comme  les  habitans  des  pays  montagneux  et  sauvages  sont 
ordinairement  les  plus  courageux,  et  du  moins  les  plus  hardis,  parce 


TO    LECTURE    IV.  217 

qu'ils  sont  accoutumes  a  surmonter  les  obstacles  que  leur  oppose 
Tasperite  du  sol,  et  qu'ils  sont  forces  a  des  marches  penibles,  a 
des  travaux  souvent  perilleux ;  on  doit  remarquer  aussi  que  le 
courage  s'exalte  dans  la  guerre  des  montagnes,  le  genie  semble 
etre  plus  fecond  en  ressources,  les  obstacles  irritent ;  quand  tout 
est  difficile,  rien  ne  semble  impossible ;  le  soldat  y  devient  plus 
audacieux,  et  chaque  jour  plus  entreprenant ;  il  acquiert  aussi  plus 
de  Constance  et  de  confiance  en  sa  propre  valeur." 

Idem,  iii.  ch.  2de,  p.  40. 

It  is  an  interesting  fact,  that  it  was  in  this  country  that  this  distin- 
guished military  historian  and  soldier,  General  Mathieu  Dumas,  had 
ftis  early  service.  He  came  when  quite  a  young  man,  with  the  French 
troops  to  the  United  States,  as  one  of  the  aids  of  Count  Rocham- 
beau,  in  1780,  and  continued  in  the  country  till  after  the  surrender 
of  Yorktown,  at  which  he  was  present.  He  has  left  "  Recollec- 
tions" of  his  life,  which  describe  his  service  in  America,  the  French 
revolutionary  period,  and  his  service  under  the  French  Empire. 
The  more  elaborate  work,  on  which  his  reputation  chiefly  rests,  is 
the  "Precis  des  Evenemens  Militaires,  ou  Essais  Historiques  sur  les 
Campagnes  de  1799  a  1814."  It  is  the  work  to  which  Dr.  Arnold 
refers ;  it  was  completed  down  to  the  year  1807,  in  nineteen  vol- 
umes. It  sustains,  I  am  informed,  a  high  character  as  a  military 
authority,  and  I  can  well  believe  that  it  is  written  in  an  admirable 
spirit,  and  with  the  genuine  candour  of  an  old  soldier,  well  versed 
in  the  science  of  his  profession,  when  I  meet,  in  the  preface,  with  such 
reflections  as  these,  after  an  observation  on  the  military  pedantry 
of  judging  by  a  too  rigid  application  of  the  principles  of  warfare  : 
'  La  critique  austere  et  tranchante  n'est  pas  toujours  la  plus  in- 
structive. Sans  negliger  de  faire  remarquer  1'imprevoyance,  la 
temerite,  les  faux  calculs  punis  par  des  revers  merites,  je  me  suis, 
je  1'avoue,  attache  davantage  a  faire  ressortir  les  exemples  con- 
traires,  ceux  ou  le  general  n'a  pas  du  seulement  la  victoire  aux 
fautes  de  son  adversaire,  mais  bien  plut6t  a  ses  bonnes  dispositions, 
a  1'intelligence  et  a  1'energie  de  ses  officiers  et  de  ses  soldats,  ne 
laissant  a  la  fortune  que  les  chances  qu'on  ne  peut  garantir  centre 


ses  caprices.' 


19 


LECTURE  V. 


1  PROPOSED  that  in  the  present  lecture  we  should  approach 
to  the  consideration  of  the  internal  history  of  the  last  three 
hundred  or  three  hundred  and  forty  years  which  have 
elapsed  since  the  close  of  the  middle  ages.  It  is  not  with- 
out some  peculiar  apprehensions  that  I  enter  upon  this  part 
of  my  subject.  Its  difficulties  are  so  great  that  I  cannot  hope 
to  do  more  than  partially  remove  them  ;  and  still  more,  when 
we  come  to  an  analysis  of  opinions  and  parties,  it  is  scarcely 
possible  to  avoid  expressing,  or  at  least  implying  some  judg- 
ments of  my  own,  which  may  be  at  variance  with  the  judg- 
ments of  many  of  my  hearers.  Yet  with  a  full  sense  of  all 
these  impediments  in  my  way,  I  yet  feel  that  I  must  proceed, 
and  that  to  turn  aside  from  the  straightforward  road,  would 
be  an  unworthy  shrinking  from  one  of  the  most  important 
parts  of  my  duty.  For,  as  I  said  at  the  beginning,  any  thing 
of  the  nature  of  a  calm  analysis  of  that  on  which  we  have 
been  accustomed  to  feel  much  more  than  to  think,  cannot  but 
be  useful  to  us.  Nor  will  it  be  the  least  valuable  part  of  it 
that  it  should  teach  us  to  disentangle  principles  first  from 
parties,  and  again  from  one  another ;  first  of  all,  as  showing 
how  imperfectly  all  parties  represent  their  own  principles, 
and  then,  how  the  principles  themselves  are  a  mingled  tissue, 
the  good  and  evil  being  sometimes  combined  together ;  and 
practically,  that  which  under  some  circumstances  was  good 
or  evil,  changing  under  different  circumstances,  and  becom- 
ing the  opposite. 

Now  here,  at  the  outset  of  our  inquiry,  1  must  again  dwell 


220  LECTURE    V. 

for  a  moment  on  our  peculiar  advantages,  in  this  place,  ir 
being  made  so  familiar  with  the  histories  of  Greece  and  of 
Rome.  For  in  those  histories  is  involved  a  great  part  of  our 
own :  they  contain  a  view  of  our  own  society,  only  some- 
what simplified,  as  befits  an  earlier  and  introductory  study. 
And  our  familiarity  with  their  details  will  be  convenient  on 
the  present  occasion,  because  they  will  furnish  us  with 
many  illustrations  familiar  already  to  all  my  hearers.  Be- 
sides this,  he  who  has  studied  Thucydides  and  Tacitus,  and 
has  added  to  them,  as  so  many  of  us  have  done,  a  familiar 
acquaintance  with  Aristotle,  Plato,  and  Cicero,  has  already 
heard  the  masters  of  political  wisdom,  and  will  have  derived 
from  them  some  general  rules  to  assist  him  in  making  his 
way  through  the  thicket  of  modern  history.  (1) 

When  we  surveyed  the  external  history  of  the  last  three 
centuries,  we  found  that  there  were  at  different  times  differ- 
ent centres  of  action ;  that  at  one  time  Austria  was  this  cen- 
tre, at  another  Spain,  and  at  another  France :  so  that  if  one 
were  asked,  quite  generally,  what  was  Europe  doing  exter- 
nally at  such  or  such  a  period,  it  might  be  answered,  that  it 
was  engaged  in  favouring  or  in  resisting  one  or  other  of  these 
great  powers.  Now  if  we  ask  at  any  given  period,  what 
Europe  was  doing  internally,  can  we  give  an  answer  equally 
simple  ?  Has  there  been  any  principle  predominant  with 
respect  to  internal  history,  as  successive  nations  have  been 
in  external  matters,  and  has  the  advancing  or  putting  down 
this  principle  been  the  great  business  of  the  mind  of  Europe, 
as  the  supporting  or  opposing  Austrian  or  French  dominion 
has  been  the  business  of  her  external  policy  and  action  ? 

Now,  for  the  convenience  of  division,  and  as  an  aid  to  our 
examination,  we  may  say  perhaps  that  there  was :  and  we 
may  divide  the  three  last  centuries  into  two  periods,  the  first 
extending  from  1500  to  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  centu- 
ry, and  the  second  going  on  from  1650  or  1660  to  nearly  our 


LECTURE    V.  221 

own  times.  And  quite  generally,  we  might  answer,  that  in 
the  first  of  these  periods  Europe  was  engaged  in  maintaining 
or  opposing  the  protestant  reformation;  in  the  second,  in 
maintaining  or  opposing  a  reformation,  or  to  use  a  more  neu- 
tral word,  an  alteration  in  matters  political.  Such  a  division, 
and  such  a  view  of  each  of  the  two  parts  of  the  division, 
ivould  be  allowable  and  just,  I  think,  if  made  for  the  mere 
purpose  of  assisting  our  studies,  while  we  were  fully  aware 
)f  its  incompleteness.  But  if  we  believed  it  to  be  altogether 
correct,  it  would  be  sadly  misleading ;  for  in  reality  more 
han  one  principle  has  been  contended  for  at  one  time  :  and 
••vhat  we  call  the  protestant  reformation,  is  itself  a  complex 
iiing,  embracing  a  great  many  points,  theological,  moral,  and 
political  :  and  these  points  may  not  have  been  all  pressed  by 
4ie  same  persons,  nor  at  the  same  time ;  and  political  ref- 
ormation also  is  very  variously  understood  ;  some  wishing 
for  greater  changes,  others  for  less ;  and  the  points  most  pas- 
sionately desired  by  some,  being  to  others  almost  indifferent, 
or  it  may  be,  even  objectionable.  So  that  it  becomes  essen- 
tial to  carry  our  analysis  a  little  farther,  and  to  show  in  this 
way  what  a  complicated  subject  we  have  to  deal  with. 

Let  us  suppose  for  an  instant  that  the  whole  struggle  which 
Jias  occupied  the  internal  history  of  modern  Europe,  has  been 
a  political  one  :  we  will  take  nothing  more  into  the  account 
than  those  questions  which  are  ordinarily  called  political. 
Now,  then,  what  is  the  real  political  question  which  is  at  the 
bottom  of  all  others,  or  in  other  words,  what  is  the  principle 
of  all  political  divisions?  Shall  we  say  that  it  is  this, — 
whether  political  power  shall  be  vested  in  a  greater  or  less 
number  of  hands,  the  old  Greek  question,  in  short,  as  to  the 
ascendency  of  the  many  or  the  few  ?  Accordingly,  they 
who  take  one  side  of  this  question,  which  we  call  the  popu- 
lar side,  should  advocate,  we  will  say,  the  communication  of 
political  power  as  widely  as  possible  ;  those  who  take  the 

19* 


222  LECTURE    V. 

anti-popular  side,  should  wish  it  to  be  confined  only  to  a 
few  ?  A  complete  democracy  would  appear  to  be  the  con- 
summation of  the  wishes  of  the  former,  a  simple  monarchy 
would  most  answer  the  views  of  the  latter.  And  thus,  if  the 
contest  be  between  a  republic  and  an  individual  aiming  at 
monarchy,  men  who  espouse  the  popular  party  would  wish 
well  to  the  republic,  their  opponents  would  favour  the  at- 
tempt at  monarchy.  Accordingly,  in  the  greatest  heat  of  the 
French  revolution,  this  was  the  view  taken  of  the  civil  wars 
of  Rome ;  and  the  popular  party  in  France  revered  the 
memory,  and  on  all  occasions  magnified  the  names  of  Cato 
and  Brutus  as  true  republicans,  who  were  upholding  the 
cause  of  liberty  against  a  tyrant.  Yet  it  is  certain  that  this 
view  was  quite  fallacious ;  that  Cato  and  Brutus  belonged 
not  to  the  popular  party  at  Rome,  but  to  the  aristocratical ; 
they  belonged  to  that  party  which  had  steadily  opposed  the 
agrarian  laws,  and  the  communication  of  the  Roman  fran- 
chise to  the  allies ;  to  the  party  which  had  destroyed  the 
Gracchi,  and  had  recovered  its  ascendency  through  the  pro- 
scriptions of  Sylla.  And  it  is  no  less  certain  that  Caesar 
was  supported  by  the  popular  party ;  and  that  when  he 
marched  into  Italy  at  the  beginning  of  the  civil  war,  his  pre- 
text was,  that  he  was  come  to  uphold  the  tribunician  power, 
and,  in  point  of  fact,  the  mass  of  the  inhabitants  of  Italy  re- 
garded him  with  favour. 

Here,  then,  the  opposition  of  a  republic  to  an  individual 
aiming  at  monarchy,  is  not  the  opposition  of  a  popular  party 
to  an  antipopular  one,  but  exactly  the  reverse.  Again,  a 
similar  mistake  has  been  committed  with  regard  to  parties  in 
Carthage.  Dr.  Priestley,  a  most  strenuous  advocate  of  pop- 
ular principles,  in  his  Lectures  on  History,  sympathizes  en- 
tirely  with  Hanno's  opposition  to  Hannibal ;  he  is  afraid  that 
Hannibal's  standing  army  might  have  overthrown  the  liber- 
ties of  Carthage.  Yet  nothing  is  more  certain  than  that 


LECTURE    V  223 

Hanno  belonged  to  the  high  aristocratical  party,  that  same 
party  which  never  forgave  Hannibal  for  his  attempt  to  lessen 
the  powers  of  their  exclusive  courts  of  judicature.  So  that 
it  is  very  possible  that,  judging  of  political  parties  merely  by 
their  advocating  the  power  of  a  greater  or  smaller  number, 
we  should  estimate  them  quite  erroneously. 

Again,  what  is  at  the  bottom  of  our  preference  of  what  is 
called  the  popular  cause,  or  of  the  antipopular  ?  Do  we 
rest  in  the  simple  fact  of  the  supreme  power  being  vested  in 
more  hands  or  in  fewer  ?  or  do  we  value  this  fact  only  as  a 
means  to  some  farther  end,  such  as  the  liberty  and  happiness 
of  the  several  individuals  of  the  commonwealth  ?  Do  we,  in 
short,  most  value  political  equality,  or  the  absence  of  restraint 
from  us  as  individuals  ?  It  is  manifest  that  as  we  value  the 
one  or  the  other,  our  estimate  of  a  pure  democracy  may 
greatly  differ.  If  our  great  object  be  equality,  then  the  equal 
enjoyment  of  political  rights  and  honours  by  all  will  seem  to 
us  the  perfection  of  government :  if  the  absence  of  restraint 
on  individuals  be  what  we  most  desire,  then  we  may  com- 
plain of  the  tyranny  of  a  majority,  of  a  severe  system  of 
sumptuary  laws,  of  hindrances  thrown  in  the  way  of  our  un- 
limited accumulation  of  property,  or  of  our  absolute  disposal 
of  it,  whether  by  gift  or  by  will.  (2) 

Yet  again,  taking  the  mere  ascendency  of  the  many  or  the 
few  to  be  our  object,  without  looking  any  farther,  yet  there 
arises  a  most  important  question,  how  many  we  comprehend 
in  our  division  of  many  and  few.  Do  we  mean  the  many 
and  the  few  of  all  the  human  beings  within  our  territory,  or 
of  all  the  freemen,  or  of  all  the  sovereign  state,  as  opposed  to 
its  provinces,  or  of  all  the  full  citizens,  as  opposed  to  half- 
citizens  and  sojourners  ?  According  as  we  mean  either  the 
one  or  the  other,  the  same  party  may  be  popular  or  antipop- 
ular :  Are  the  southern  states  of  the  North  American  union, 
then,  to  be  regarded  as  democratical  or  as  oligarchical  ?  In 


224  LECTURE    V. 

the  old  constitution  of  Switzerland,  what  was  the  canton  of 
Uri,  as  we  regard  it  either  with  or  without  its  Italian  baili- 
wicks ?  In  Spanish  America  what  would  have  been  a  Creole 
democracy,  as  we  either  forgot  or  remembered  the  existence 
of  the  men  of  colour  ?  So  that  our  very  principle  of  the 
mere  ascendency  of  the  few  or  the  many  becomes  complica 
ted ;  and  we  very  often  regard  a  government  as  populai 
when  it  might  with  justice,  in  another  respect,  be  called  an- 
tipopular. 

Thus  regarding  the  contests  of  Europe  simply  in  a  politi- 
cal light,  and  as  they  affect  one  single  political  question, — 
that  of  the  ascendency  of  the  many  or  the  few, — we  do  not 
find  it  easy  to  judge  of  them.  Let  us  carry  this  on  a  little 
farther.  Say  that  we  do  not  regard  the  mere  machinery  of 
governments,  but  their  results ;  we  value  that  most  which  is 
best  administered,  and  most  promotes  the  good  of  the  nation ; 
our  views  are  not  so  much  popular  as  liberal.  Have  we  ar- 
rived, therefore,  at  a  greater  simplification  of  the  question  ? 
Shall  we,  as  liberal  men,  agree  in  regarding  the  same  gov- 
ernment as  deserving  of  our  support  or  our  opposition  ? 
Scarcely,  I  think,  unless  we  are  first  agreed  as  to  what  the 
good  of  the  nation  is.  The  ancient  commonwealths,  for  the 
most  part,  discouraged  trade  and  manufactures  as  compared 
with  agriculture.  Were  these  governments  promoting  the 
public  good,  or  no  ?  Other  nations  have  followed  a  different 
course  ;  have  encouraged  trade  and  rejoiced  in  the  growing 
wealth  and  comforts  of  their  people.  These,  in  their  turn, 
are  denounced  by  the  principles  and  practice  of  others,  who 
dread  above  all  things  the  introduction  of  luxury.  Again, 
we  attach  great  importance  to  the  cultivation  of  art  and  sci- 
ence ;  to  all  humanizing  amusements ;  music,  the  theatre, 
dancing,  &c.  But  when  Lavoisier  pleaded  for  his  life  to  the 
French  government  of  1793,  he  was  told  that  the  republic 
had  no  need  of  chemists ;  (3)  the  Roman  senate  expelled  th> 


LECTURE    V.  225 

rhetoricians  from  Rome  :  the  early  government  of  the  state 
of  Connecticut,  one  of  the  freest  of  commonwealths,  would 
tolerate  no  public  amusements,  least  of  all  the  theatre.  1 
might  instance  other  differences  in  matters  of  a  still  higher 
character;  as,  for  example,  with  regard  to  the  expediency 
of  a  severe  penal  code  or  a  mild  one ;  to  the  establishment 
of  one  religion,  or  the  extending  equal  favour  to  all.  We 
see  that  the  good  government  of  one  man  is  the  bad  govern- 
ment of  another ;  the  best  results,  according  to  one  man's 
estimate,  are  in  the  eyes  of  his  neighbour  the  most  to  be  dep- 
recated. 

Now  all  these  different  views  are  found  in  connection  with 
different  views  on  questions  purely  political ;  so  that  the  very 
same  party  may  in  some  respects  advocate  what  we  approve 
of,  and  in  others  follow  what  we  most  dislike ;  and  farther, 
it  may  often  act  inconsistently  with  itself,  and  pursue  its 
principles,  thus  mingled  as  they  are,  imperfectly,  or  even 
may  seem  to  act  at  variance  with  them.  What,  then,  are 
we  to  judge  of  it,  when  we  are  studying  past  history  ;  or 
how  should  we  have  to  act,  if  a  similar  party  were  to  exist 
in  our  own  generation  ? 

Such,  we  see,  are  the  difficulties  of  our  subject ;  and  to 
illustrate  them  still  farther,  1  will  name  one  or  two  instances 
in  which  men  may  seem  to  have  mistaken  their  own  natural 
side,  owing  to  the  complicated  character  of  actual  parties ; 
and  from  their  keen  perception  of  some  one  point,  either  as 
loving  it  or  abhorring  it,  have  for  its  sake  renounced  much 
that  was  congenial,  or  joined  much  that  was  unsuited  to 
them.  This  was  the  case,  I  think,  with  the  historian  Hume. 
A  man  of  his  exceedingly  inquiring  and  unrestrained  mind, 
living  in  the  midst  of  the  eighteenth  century,  might  have 
been  expected  to  have  espoused  what  is  called  the  popular 
side  in  the  great  questions  of  English  history,  the  side,  in 
later  language,  of  the  movement.  Yet  we  know  that  Hume's 


226  LECTURE    V. 

leaning  is  the  other  way.  Accidental  causes  may  perhaps 
have  contributed  to  this ;  the  prejudice  of  an  ingenious  mind 
against  the  opinions  which  he  found  most  prevalent  around 
him ;  the  resistance  of  a  restless  mind  to  the  powers  that  be, 
as  natural  as  implicit  acquiescence  in  them  is  to  an  indolent 
mind.  But  the  main  cause  apparently  is  to  be  sought  in  his 
abhorrence  of  puritanism,  alike  repugnant  to  him  in  its  good 
and  its  evil.  His  subtle  and  active  mind  could  not  bear  its 
narrowness  and  bigotry,  his  careless  and  epicurean  temper 
had  no  sympathy  with  its  earnestness  and  devotion.  The 
popular  cause  in  our  great  civil  contests  was  in  his  eyes  the 
cause  of  fanaticism ;  and  where  he  saw  fanaticism,  he  saw 
that  from  which  his  whole  nature  recoiled,  as  the  greatest  of 
all  conceivable  evils.  (4) 

I  have  spoken  of  the  popular  party  in  our  great  civil  con- 
test as  being,  in  modern  language,  the  party  of  the  move- 
ment. Yet  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  a  popular 
party  and  a  movement  party  are  always  synonymous.  A 
movement  party  is  a  very  indefinite  expression,  applicable 
equally  to  very  different  things.  It  includes  equally  those 
who  move  with  a  clearly  apprehended  object,  aware  of  the 
evil  which  they  are  leaving,  and  of  the  good  towards  which 
they  are  tending ;  and  those  who  move  from  an  impulse  of 
intolerable  suffering  in  their  actual  state,  but  are  going  they 
know  not  whither;  and  those  who  would  move  from  mere 
restlessness ;  and  those,  lastly,  who  move  as  the  instruments 
of  a  power  which  they  serve  unconsciously,  altering  the  state 
of  the  world  while  they  are  thinking  only  of  some  object  of 
personal  ambition.  In  this  latter  sense,  Philip  of  Macedon 
belonged  to  the  party  of  the  movement,  while  Demosthenes 
would  have  kept  Greece  in  her  old  relations.  We  see,  in 
this  last  instance,  the  popular  party  and  the  movement  party 
directly  opposed  to  one  another,  accidentally,  however,  as 
.heir  coincidence  also  is  accidental.  We  cannot  but  see  that 


LECTURE    V.  227 

the  change  which  Philip  wrought,  caring  only  for  his  personal 
objects,  was  in  fact  a.i  onward  step  in  the  scheme  of  God's 
providence,  involving,  as  it  did,  that  great  spread  of  the 
Greek  race  and  language  over  Asia,  which  was  to  serve 
such  high  purposes  hereafter.  To  this  Demosthenes  was  op- 
posed ;  his  object  being  only  to  maintain  the  old  indepen- 
dence of  Greece,  and  the  old  liberty  and  glory  of  Athens.  (5) 
A  hundred  years  earlier,  Pericles,  heading  the  same  political 
party,  if  we  look  only  to  the  political  relations  of  Athens 
abroad  and  at  home,  had  also  headed  the  party  of  the  move- 
ment ;  new  dominion,  new  wealth,  new  glory,  new  arts,  and 
a  new  philosophy,  every  thing  in  Pericles  and  his  adminis- 
tration was  a  going  onward  from  what  had  existed  before.  (6) 
So  again,  to  take  our  examples  from  modern  times,  the  great 
religious  movement  in  England  at  the  Reformation,  was  quite 
unconnected  with  popular  principles  in  politics ;  and  the  same 
was  the  case  in  France  in  the  wars  of  the  League.  The 
popular  party  in  France,  so  far  as  either  of  the  contending 
parties  deserved  that  name,  was  opposed  to  Henry  the  Fourth, 
and  in  favour  of  the  house  of  Guise.  The  burghers  of  Paris 
were  as  zealously  attached  to  the  Holy  Catholic  League  as 
those  of  London,  sixty  years  later,  were  devoted  to  the  Sol- 
emn League  and  Covenant.  The  great  movement,  there- 
fore, of  the  world  is  often  wholly  unconnected  with  the 
relations  of  the  popular  and  antipopular  parties  in  any  one 
particular  state, — it  may  be  favoured  or  resisted  by  either  of 
them. 

Farther  still,  the  mere  change  of  time  and  circumstances 
may  alter  the  character  of  the  same  party,  without  any 
change  on  its  own  part :  its  triumph  may  be  at  one  time  an 
evil,  and  at  another  time  a  good.  This  is  owing  to  a  truth 
which  should  never  be  forgotten  in  all  political  inquiries,  that 
government  is  wholly  relative ;  and  that  there  is  and  can  be 
no  such  thing  as  the  best  government  absolutely,  suited  to 


228  LECTURE    V. 

all  periods  and  to  all  countries.  It  is  a  fatal  error  in  all  po. 
litical  questions  to  mistake  the  clock  ;  to  fancy  that  it  is  still 
forenoon,  when  the  sun  is  westering ;  that  it  is  early  morn- 
ing,  when  the  sun  has  already  mounted  high  in  the  heavens. 
No  instance  of  this  importance  of  reading  the  clock  aright 
can  be  more  instructive,  than  the  great  quarrel  ordinarily 
known  as  that  of  the  Guelfs  and  Ghibelins.  I  may  remind 
you  that  these  were  respectively  the  parties  which  embraced 
the  papal  and  the  imperial  cause,  in  the  struggle  between 
these  two  powers  in  Italy  and  Germany,  from  the  eleventh 
century  onwards  to  the  fourteenth.  Here,  as  in  all  other 
actual  contests,  a  great  variety  of  principles,  and  passions, 
and  instincts,  so  to  speak,  were  intermingled ;  we  must  not 
suppose  that  it  was  any  thing  like  a  pure  struggle  on  what 
may  be  called  the  distinguishing  principle  of  the  Guelf  01 
Ghibelin  cause.  But  the  principle  in  itself  was  this :  wheth- 
er the  papal  or  the  imperial,  in  other  words,  the  sacerdotal  or 
the  regal  power,  was  to  be  accounted  the  greater.  Nofr  con- 
ceive the  papal  power  to  be  the  representative  of  what  is 
moral  and  spiritual,  and  the  imperial  power  to  represent  only 
what  is  external  and  physical ;  conceive  the  first  to  express 
the  ideas  of  responsibility  to  God  and  paternal  care  and 
guidance,  while  the  other  was  the  mere  embodying  of  selfish 
might,  like  the  old  Greek  tyrannies ;  (7)  and  who  can  do 
other  than  wish  success  to  the  papal  cause  ?  who  can  help 
being  with  all  his  heart  a  Guelf  ?  But  in  the  early  part  of 
the  struggle,  this  was  to  a  great  degree  the  state  of  it ;  the 
pope  stood  in  the  place  of  the  church,  the  emperor  was  a 
merely  worldly  despot,  corrupt  and  arbitrary.  (8)  But  con- 
ceive, on  the  other  hand,  the  papacy  to  become  the  represent- 
ative of  superstition  and  of  spiritual  tyranny,  while  the 
imperial  power  was  the  expression  and  voice  of  law ;  that 
the  emperor  stood  in  the  place  of  the  church,  and  the  pope 
was  the  mere  priest,  the  church's  worst  enemy ;  and  this  was 


LECTURE    V.  229 

actually  the  form  which  the  contest  between  the  sacerdotal 
and  regal  powers  assumed  at  a  later  period ;  then  our  sym- 
pathies are  changed,  and  we  become  no  less  zealously  Ghib- 
elin  than  we  before  were  Guelf.  Now,  so  far  at  least  as  the 
papal  power  was  concerned,  the  change  was  not  in  it,  but  in 
outward  circumstances.  In  the  beginning  of  the  dispute,  the 
papal  claims  were  no  less  excessive  than  they  became  after- 
wards ;  all  the  notions  of  priestly  power  were  to  be  found  in 
them,  if  not  fully  developed,  yet  virtually.  But  these  claims 
are  harmless  when  the  church  is  asleep  or  inactive,  except 
so  far  as  they  tend  to  prolong  the  sleep  and  inactivity.  Set- 
ting aside  this  consideration,  and  supposing  a  state  of  igno- 
rance and  torpor  not  produced  by  the  papacy,  and  likely  to 
exist  for  a  long  time  to  come  from  other  causes,  independent 
of  the  papacy's  control,  and  then  the  papal  dominion  may  be 
no  more  than  the  natural  and  lawful  authority  of  mature  age 
over  childhood,  of  the  teacher  over  him  who  needs  to  be 
taught,  of  those  who  understand  what  Christianity  is,  over 
those  who,  professing  to  be  Christians,  yet  know  not  what 
their  principles  are.  But  so  soon  as  the  child  grew  up  into 
the  man,  that  the  sleeper  was  awakened,  the  inactive  roused, 
the  Christian  taught  to  know  his  privileges  and  his  duties — 
then  the  church  being  competent  to  do  its  own  work,  the 
claim  of  the  pope  to  stand  in  its  place  became  impertinent ; 
and  when  that  claim  was  urged  as  one  of  divine  right,  for  all 
times  and  circumstances,  and  men  were  required  to  acknow- 
ledge its  validity,  then  having  become  as  useless  and  mis- 
chievous practically,  as  it  was  and  always  had  been  false 
theoretically,  it  was  rejected  as  it  deserved  to  be,  and  was 
considered  amongst  the  greatest  obstacles  to  truth  and  to 
goodness. 

This  inattention  to  altered  circumstances,  which  would 
make  us  be  Guelfs  in  the  sixteenth  or  seventeenth  centuries 
because  the  Guelf  cause  had  been  right  in  the  eleventh  or 

20 


230  LECTURE  V. 

twelfth,  is  a  fault  of  most  universal  application  in  all  political 
questions,  and  is  often  most  seriously  mischievous.  It  is 
deeply  seated  in  human  nature,  being  in  fact  no  other  than 
an  exemplification  of  the  force  of  habit.  It  is  like  the  case 
of  a  settler  landing  in  a  country  overrun  with  wood  and  un- 
drained,  and  visited  therefore  by  excessive  falls  of  rain.  The 
evil  of  wet,  and  damp,  and  closeness  is  besetting  him  on 
every  side  ;  he  clears  away  the  woods,  and  he  drains  his 
land,  and  he  by  doing  so  mends  both  his  climate  and  his  own 
condition.  Encouraged  by  his  success  he  perseveres  in  his 
system ;  clearing  a  country  is  with  him  synonymous  with 
making  it  fertile  and  habitable ;  and  he  levels  or  rather  sets 
fire  to  his  forests  without  mercy.  Meanwhile  the  tide  is 
turned  without  his  observing  it;  he  has  already  cleared 
enough,  and  every  additional  clearance  is  a  mischief;  damp 
and  wet  are  no  longer  the  evils  most  to  be  dreaded,  but  ex- 
cessive drought.  The  rains  do  not  fall  in  sufficient  quantity; 
the  springs  become  low,  the  rivers  become  less  and  less  fitted 
for  navigation.  Yet  habit  blinds  him  for  a  long  while  to  the 
real  state  of  the  case;  and  he  continues  to  encourage  a 
coming  mischief  in  his  dread  of  one  that  is  become  obsolete. 
We  have  been  long  making  progress  on  our  present  tack,  yet 
if  we  do  not  go  about  now,  we  shall  run  ashore.  Consider 
the  popular  feeling  at  this  moment  against  capital  punish- 
ments ;  what  is  it  but  continuing  to  burn  the  woods,  when 
the  country  actually  wants  shade  and  moisture.  Year  after 
year  men  talked  of  the  severity  of  the  penal  code,  and  strug- 
gled against  it  in  vain.  The  feeling  became  stronger  and 
stronger,  and  at  last  effected  all  and  more  than  all  which  it 
had  at  first  vainly  demanded ;  yet  still  from  mere  habit  it 
pursues  its  course,  no  longer  to  the  restraining  of  legal  cruelty, 
but  to  the  injury  of  innocence  and  the  encouragement  of 
crime,  and  encouraging  that  worse  evil,  a  sympathy  with 
Wickedness  justly  punished,  rather  than  with  the  law,  whether 


LECTURE    V.  231 

of  God  or  man,  unjustly  violated.  (9)  So  men  have  con- 
tinued  to  cry  out  against  the  power  of  the  crown  after  the 
crown  had  been  shackled  hand  and  foot ;  and  to  express  the 
greatest  dread  of  popular  violence,  long  after  that  violence  was 
exhausted,  and  the  antipopular  party  was  not  only  rallied, 
but  had  turned  the  tide  of  battle,  and  was  victoriously  pressing 
upon  its  enemy.  (10) 

I  am  not  afraid  after  having  gone  thus  far,  to  mention  one 
consideration  more,  which,  however  over  nice  it  may  seem 
to  some,  appears  to  me  really  deserving  to  be  taken  into  ac- 
count. I  mean  that  although  the  danger  from  any  party  in 
our  own  particular  contest  may  seem  to  be  at  an  end,  and  our 
alarms  are  beginning  to  be  transferred  to  the  opposite  party, 
yet  it  is  an  important  modification  of  the  case,  if  in  other 
countries  the  party  which  with  us  has  just  ceased  to  be  for- 
midable is  still  entirely  predominant,  and  no  opposition  to  it 
seems  to  be  in  existence.  This  would  seem  to  show  that  the 
main  current  of  our  times  is  still  setting  in  that  direction,  and 
that  the  danger  is  still  where  we  at  first  apprehended  it; 
although  in  our  own  particular  country,  a  local  cross-current 
may  seem  to  indicate  the  contrary.  For  example,  any  ex- 
cesses of  the  popular  party  in  England  in  1642  and  the  sub- 
sequent years,  were  much  less  dangerous,  because  the  same 
party  in  other  parts  of  Europe  was  so  completely  powerless ; 
whereas  in  later  years  the  triumph,  first  of  the  Americans, 
and  afterwards  of  the  French  Revolution,  would  make  an 
essential  difference  in  the  strength  of  popular  principles  in 
the  world  generally,  and  therefore  would  make  their  excess 
in  any  one  particular  country  more  really  formidable. 

If  we  take  into  consideration  all  that  has  been  hitherto 
said,  and  remember  besides  how  much  national  questions 
have  been  mixed  up  with  those  of  a  political  or  religious 
character,  to  say  nothing  of  commercial  or  economical  in- 
terests, or  of  the  anomalies  of  individual  caprice  or  passion, 


S32  LECTURE   V, 

we  shall  have  some  notion  of  the  difficulty  of  our  task  to 
analyze  the  internal  history  of  the  last  three  centuries.  And 
I  have  said  nothing  of  philosophy,  and  nothing  of  religion, 
both  of  which  have  been  very  influential  causes  of  action, 
and  thus  tend  to  complicate  the  subject  still  farther.  Let  us 
now  see  how  far  it  is  possible  to  separate  a  little  this  per- 
plexed mass,  and  to  arrive  at  some  distinct  views  of  the 
course  of  events  and  of  opinions. 

In  order  to  do  this,  the  most  effectual  way  perhaps  will  be  to 
select  some  one  particular  country,  and  make  its  internal  his- 
tory the  subject  of  an  analysis.  But  I  should  wish  it  to  be 
understood  that  I  am  offering  rather  a  specimen  of  the  method 
to  be  pursued  in  analyzing  history,  than  pretending  to  execute 
the  analysis  completely.  In  fact  if  there  were  no  other  ob- 
stacles in  the  way  of  such  a  complete  work,  the  limits  of  these 
lectures  would  alone  render  it  impracticable.  And  therefore 
if  any  of  my  hearers  notice  great  omissions  in  the  following 
sketch,  he  may  suppose,  at  least  in  many  instances,  that  they 
are  made  advisedly,  that  I  am  not  attempting  a  complete  his- 
torical view,  but  only  exhibiting,  in  some  very  familiar  in- 
stances, what  I  believe  to  be  the  method  of  studying  internal 
history  to  the  greatest  advantage. 

Availing  myself  then  of  the  division  which  I  have  noticed 
above,  and  assuming  for  our  present  purposes  that  the  three 
last  centuries  may  be  divided  into  two  periods,  the  one  of  re- 
ligious, the  other  of  political  movement,  I  will  now  endeavour 
to  offer  a  specimen  of  the  analysis  of  internal  history,  taking 
for  my  subject  these  two  periods  successively,  as  far  as  re- 
gards our  own  country;  and  beginning  therefore  with  the 
sixteenth  century. 

ft  does  not  appear  to  me  that  there  was  at  the  beginning 
of  this  century  any  thing  in  England  which  deserves  to  be 
called  either  a  political  or  a  religious  party.  There  were 
changes  at  work  no  doubt,  social  changes  going  on  imper- 


LECTURE    V.  233 

ceptibly  which  prepared  the  way  for  the  development  of  par- 
ties hereafter;  but  the  parties  themselves  were  not  yet  in 
existence.  There  was  no  party  to  assert  the  right  of  any 
rival  claimant  to  the  throne,  there  was  no  question  stirring 
between  the  king  and  the  nobility,  or  between  the  king  and 
the  commons,  or  between  the  nobility  and  commons.  A  more 
tranquil  state  of  things  politically  could  not  well  be  found. 

So  it  was  also  religiously.  The  great  schism  of  the  rival 
popes  had  been  long  settled,  and  WickliftVs  doctrines,  al- 
though they  could  never  have  become  extinct,  did  not  gain 
strength  visibly  \  and  those  who  held  them  were  in  no  condi- 
tion to  form  a  party  against  the  prevailing  church  doctrines 
or  government.  We  start  therefore  upon  our  inquiry,  with 
the  whole  matter  of  it  before  us,  nothing  of  it  has  been  al- 
ready begun. 

Neither  do  I  think  that  any  thing  properly  to  be  called  a 
party  showed  itself  till  the  reign  of  Elizabeth.  I  do  not 
mean  to  deny  that  Cranmer  and  Gardiner,  the  Seymours  and 
the  Howards,  may  have  had  their  adherents  and  their  ene- 
mies, principally  amongst  those  who  were  attached  on  the 
one  hand  to  the  Reformation,  and  on  the  other  hand  to  the 
system  which  was  being  reformed.  So  again  there  were 
insurrections  both  in  Henry  the  Eighth's  reign  and  in  Ed- 
ward the  Sixth's  against  the  measures  of  the  government, 
when  it  was  assailing  the  ancient  system.  But  none  of  these 
things  seem  to  have  had  sufficient  consistence  or  permanence 
to  entitle  them  to  the  name  of  national  parties.  At  any  rate 
the  reign  of  Elizabeth  witnessed  them  in  a  much  more  formed 
state,  and  here  therefore  we  will  consider  them. 

Elizabeth  ascended  the  throne  in  the  year  1558 ;  Charles 
the  Fifth  had  died  about  two  months  before  her  accession ; 
Henry  the  Second  was  still  reigning.  Paul  the  Fourth, 
John  Peter  Caraffa,  had  been  pope  for  the  last  three  years : 
the  Reformation,  dating  from  Luther's  first  preaching,  was 

20* 


234  LECTURE   T. 

now  about  forty  years  old:  the  council  of  Trent  was  sus. 
pended;  its  third  and  final  period  began  under  Pius  the 
Fourth,  four  years  later.  The  Reformation  after  having 
been  established  fully  in  England  under  Edward  the  Sixth, 
and  again  completely  overthrown  under  Mary,  was  now 
once  more  triumphant.  But  its  friends  were  divided  amongst 
themselves,  and  we  can  now  trace  two  active  and  visible 
parties  in  .England,  with  a  third  no  longer  combating  in  its 
own  name  in  the  front  of  the  battle,  but  still  powerful,  and 
transferring  some  of  its  principles  to  one  of  the  other  two 
parties,  whose  triumph  might  possibly  lead  the  way  here- 
after to  its  own.  These  three  parties  were  the  favourers  of 
the  church  system  as  actually  established,  those  who  wished 
to  reform  it  still  more,  and  those  who  wished  to  undo  what 
had  been  done  to  it  already.  But  the  Roman  Catholics,  who 
formed  this  last  party,  could  not,  as  I  have  said,  fight  their 
battle  openly,  as  both  the  government  and  the  mass  of  the 
nation  were  against  them. 

It  does  not  appear  that  these  parties  had  as  yet  assumed  a 
directly  political  form.  They  as  yet  involved  no  struggle 
between  the  crown  and  the  parliament,  or  between  the  gov- 
ernment and  the  nation.  Of  course  they  contained  in  them 
certain  political  tendencies,  which  were  afterwards  developed 
sufficiently ;  but  they  were  as  yet,  in  their  form,  of  a  religious, 
or  at  least  of  an  ecclesiastical  character.  And  like  all  other 
parties  they  represented  each  no  one  single  principle,  but 
several ;  and  mixed  with  principles,  a  variety  of  interests 
and  passions  besides. 

1st.  The  friends  or  supporters  of  the  existing  church  sys- 
tem, however  different  in  other  respects,  agreed  in  one  great 
point ;  namely,  in  the  exclusion  of  the  papal  power,  and  in 
asserting  the  national  independence  in  things  ecclesiastical 
and  spiritual.  Farther,  they  agreed  in  the  main  in  regarding 
the  national  voice,  whose  independence  they  maintained,  as 


LECTURE    V.  235 

expressed  by  the  national  sovereign,  in  recognising  the  king 
or  queen  as  the  head  of  the  church.  In  other  matters  they 
differed  greatly,  as  was  unavoidable  •  for  thus  far  the  most 
worldly  men  and  the  most  religious  might  go  along  with  each 
other,  although  in  other  things  most  at  variance.  It  may 
be  safely  said  that  this  point  of  the  national  religious  inde- 
pendence, expressed  by  the  royal  supremacy,  was  the  main 
bond  which  held  Elizabeth  to  the  Reformation ;  not  that  she 
was  averse  to  it  religiously,  at  least  in  its  principal  points  \ 
but  that  this  threw  her  at  once  into  its  arms :  she  preferred 
that  system  which  made  her  a  queen  altogether,  to  that  which 
subjected  her,  in  the  most  important  of  all  human  concerns, 
to  the  authority  of  an  Italian  priest.  Elizabeth's  own  views 
were  shared  by  a  large  portion  of  her  people ;  they  utterly 
abhorred  the  papal  supremacy,  with  an  English  feeling  quite 
as  much  as  a  religious  one ;  it  is  not  clear  that  they  would 
have  abhorred  it  equally  had  the  papal  see  been  removed  for- 
ever from  Rome  to  Canterbury,  and  the  pope  been  necessarily 
an  Englishman.  But  in  proportion  as  religious  questions  had 
come  to  engage  men's  minds  more  generally,  so  they  became 
desirous  to  have  the  power  of  deciding  them  for  themselves. 
And  no  doubt  mere  political  feelings  had  a  great  deal  to  do 
with  the  matter ;  the  papacy  was  a  government  constantly 
varying  in  its  foreign  policy ;  French  influence  was  at  one 
time  predominant  at  Rome,  Spanish  influence  at  another; 
but  English  influence  was  never  powerful ;  and  Englishmen 
did  not  wish  to  be  in  any  degree  subject  to  an  authority 
which  might  be  acting  in  the  interests  of  their  rivals  or  their 
enemies. 

Again,  the  existing  church  system  as  opposed  to  the  old 
one  was  upheld  by  a  great  number  of  persons  throughout  the 
country,  because  it  was  the  relaxation  of  an  irksome  control. 
The  Roman  Catholic  system,  when  enforced,  does  undoubt- 
edly interfere  considerably  with  men's  libeity  of  thought  and 


236  LECTURE    V. 

action.  Its  ritual  and  ceremonial  ordinances  are  very  nu. 
merous,  and  may  be  compared  to  the  minute  details  of  mili- 
tary discipline  in  the  bondage  which  they  are  felt  to  impose. 
Its  requiring  auricular  confession,  and  its  assumed  right  of 
exercising  over  men's  minds  and  studies  the  same  absolute 
authority  which  a  parent  claims  over  the  mind  and  pursuits 
of  a  young  child,  were  unendurable  at  a  moment  when  the 
burst  of  mental  vigour  in  England  was  so  extraordinary  aa 
it  was  in  the  reign  of  queen  Elizabeth.  Let  any  man  read 
Shakespeare  and  the  other  great  dramatists  of  the  period,  and 
he  will  observe  nothing  more  remarkable  in  them  than  theii 
extreme  freedom,  I  may  almost  call  it,  their  license  of 
thought.  These  dramatists  were  entirely  men  of  the  people ; 
and  other  writers  of  the  day  belonging  to  the  same  class,  show 
no  less  the  same  tendency.  Men  of  various  ranks  and  degrees, 
from  the  highest  nobility  to  the  humblest  of  that  middle  class 
which  was  now  daily  growing  in  numbers  and  importance, 
all  loving  their  liberty  of  thought  and  action  in  their  several 
ways,  were  averse  to  the  return  of  a  system  which,  when- 
ever it  was  enforced,  as  it  now  seemed  likely  to  be,  exer- 
cised a  constant  control  over  both.  (11) 

To  be  classed  in  the  same  party,  and  yet  very  different  in 
themselves  from  the  division  of  it  just  noticed,  were  all  those 
who  out  of  sincere  and  conscientious  feeling  concurred  hearti- 
ly in  the  church  system  as  it  was  established  in  the  reign  of 
Edward  the  Sixth,  and  from  various  motives  were  disposed  to 
rest  contented  in  it.  Some  thinking  it  a  matter  of  wisdom 
and  chanty  not  to  go  farther  from  the  old  system  than  was 
necessary ;  some  also,  and  this  is  a  natural  feeling  in  the 
leaders  of  a  reforming  party,  esteeming  very  much  what 
they  had  done  already,  and  yielding  to  that  desire  of  our 
nature  which  after  work  well  done  longs  to  rest.  And  these 
took  it  ill  when  they  were  told  to  think  nothing  accomplished, 
till  they  should  have  accomplished  every  thing ;  it  seemed 


LECTURE    V.  237 

like  an  unthankful  disparagement  of  their  past  efforts,  to  be 
requiring  of  them  immediately  to  exert  themselves  farther. 
Nor  was  it  possible  for  the  bishops  and  others  of  the  high 
clergy  to  escape  the  influence  of  professional  feelings ;  which 
would  plead  in  favour  of  a  system  which,  however  much  it 
subjected  them  to  the  control  of  the  crown,  gave  them  much 
authority  and  dignity  with  respect  to  the  inferior  clergy  and 
to  the  laity. 

2dly.  Distinct  from  and  soon  to  be  strongly  opposed  to  this 
first  party,  was  the  party  which  wished  to  carry  the  Refor- 
mation farther ;  that  party  which  is  commonly  known  by  the 
name  of  Puritan.  This  was  composed  of  less  different  ele- 
ments than  the  church  party,  from  the  nature  of  the  case ; 
although  in  it  too  differences  were  in  process  of  time  observ- 
able. But  at  first  it  contained  only  those  who  in  their  main 
principle  were  agreed :  they  deemed  the  old  church  system 
to  be  utterly  bad,  so  bad  as  to  have  defiled  whatever  it  had 
touched,  even  things  in  their  own  nature  indifferent;  they 
wished  therefore  to  reform  it  utterly,  and  abandoning  every 
thing  of  man's  device,  to  adopt  nothing  either  in  church  doc- 
trine or  discipline  which  was  not  authorized  directly  by  God's 
word.  Being  men  of  exceeding  zeal  and  of  a  most  stirring 
nature,  they  were  anxious  to  do  the  work  effectually,  and 
would  listen  to  no  considerations  which  pleaded  for  compro- 
mise or  for  delay. 

Familiarity  with  and  love  of  the  foreign  protestant  churches 
on  the  one  hand,  especially  that  of  Geneva ;  an  extreme 
veneration  for  what  they  found  in  the  letter  of  the  Scripture, 
and  probably  also  certain  notions  of  good  and  free  govern- 
ment which  the  actual  state  of  the  English  monarchy  could 
not  but  shock ;  disposed  the  Puritans  to  regard  with  dislike 
the  principle  of  the  royal  supremacy.  They  saw  that  prac- 
tically the  arbitrary  power  which  they  abhorred  in  the  pope 
had  been  transferred  in  the  lump  to  the  queen  ;  they  saw  no 


S38  LECTURE    V. 

such  thing  in  the  Christian  church,  as  exhibited  in  the  Scrip, 
tures;  neither  could  they  find  there,  as  they  thought,  any 
like  the  English  episcopacy  and  hierarchy ;  but  the  govern- 
ment  of  the  church  vested  in  a  body  of  elders,  and  these  not 
all  members  of  the  order  of  the  clergy.  What  they  thought 
they  found  in  the  Scriptures  they  believed  to  be  of  divine 
authority,  not  only  when  it  was  first  instituted,  but  forever ; 
and  they  wished  therefore  to  substitute  for  the  royal  suprem- 
acy and  hierarchy  of  the  existing  English  church,  that 
church  government  which  alone,  as  they  were  persuaded, 
was  ordained  by  God  himself. 

Furthermore,  as  men  to  whom  religious  questions  were  a 
great  reality,  and  a  matter  of  the  deepest  personal  interest, 
they  were  in  the  highest  degree  impatient  of  all  which 
seemed  to  them  formalism.  They  conceived  that  amidst  the 
prevailing  ignorance  and  indifference  on  religious  matters,  a 
liturgical  service  was  of  much  less  consequence  than  a  stir- 
ring preaching  of  the  gospel ;  they  complained,  therefore,  of 
the  evil  of  an  unpreaching  ministry ;  for  the  mass  of  the 
clergy  were  so  ignorant  that  they  were  unable,  or  could  not 
be  trusted  to  preach,  and  the  homilies  had  been  set  forth  by 
authority,  to  remedy,  as  far  as  might  be,  this  defect.  The 
puritans  said  that  the  liturgy  might  become  a  mere  form, 
both  in  the  minister  and  in  the  congregation,  if  it  were  not 
accompanied  by  an  effective  preaching;  the  minister,  in 
their  view,  was  not  to  be  the  mere  instrument  of  the  church 
services,  but  to  be  useful  to  the  people  by  his  own  personal 
gifts ;  an  ignorant  or  utterly  vicious  man  might  read  a  form 
prescribed  by  others ;  they  wanted  a  man  who  should  be- 
lieve, and  must  therefore  speak,  not  the  words  of  others,  but 
those  of  his  own  convictions  and  affections. 

There  was  in  the  principles  of  the  puritans  nothing  of 
philosophy,  either  in  the  good  sense  of  the  word  or  the  bad. 
And  it  is  also  most  unjust  to  charge  them  with  irreverence  or 


LECTURE    V.  239 

want  of  humility.  They  received  the  Scriptures  as  God's 
word,  and  they  followed  them  implicitly.  Neither  do  they 
seem  chargeable  with  establishing  nice  distinctions  in  order 
to  evade  their  obvious  meaning  ;  their  fault  seems  rather  to 
have  lain  in  the  other  extreme ;  they  acquiesced  in  the  ob- 
vious and  literal  meaning  too  unhesitatingly.  Nor  yet  were 
they  wanting  in  respect  for  all  human  authority,  as  trusting 
in  their  own  wisdom  and  piety  only.  On  the  contrary,  the 
decisions  of  the  earlier  church  with  respect  to  the  great 
Christian  doctrines,  they  received  without  questioning :  they 
by  no  means  took  the  Scriptures  into  their  hands,  and  sat 
down  to  make  a  new  creed  of  their  own  out  of  them.  They 
disregarded  the  church  only  where  the  church  departed  from 
the  obvious  sense  of  Scripture ;  I  do  not  say  the  true  sense, 
hut  the  obvious  one.  The  difference  as  to  their  moral  char- 
acter is  considerable  :  because  he  who  maintains  another  than 
the  obvious  sense  of  Scripture  against  other  men,  may  indeed 
be  perfectly  right,  but  he  is  liable  to  the  charge,  whether 
grave  or  frivolous  as  it  may  be,  of  preferring  his  own  inter- 
pretation to  that  of  the  church.  But  maintaining  the  obvious 
sense,  even  if  it  be  the  wrong  one,  he  can  hardly  be  charged 
himself  with  arrogance;  he  may  with  greater  plausibility 
retort  the  charge  on  his  opponents,  that  they  are  substituting 
the  devices  of  their  own  ingenuity  for  the  plain  sense  of  the 
word  of  God. 

To  say  that  the  puritans  were  wanting  in  humility  because 
they  did  not  acquiesce  in  the  state  of  things  which  they  found 
around  them,  is  a  mere  extravagance  arising  out  of  a  total 
misapprehension  of  the  nature  of  humility,  and  of  the  merits 
of  the  feeling  of  veneration.  All  earnestness  and  depth  of 
character  is  incompatible  with  such  a  notion  of  humility.  A 
man  deeply  penetrated  with  some  great  truth,  and  compelled 
as  it  were  to  obey  it,  cannot  listen  to  every  one  who  may  be 
indifferent  to  it  or  opposed  to  it.  There  is  a  voice  to  which 


240  LECTURE    V. 

ne  already  owes  obedience,  which  he  servos  with  the  hum- 
blest  devotion,  which  he  worships  with  the  most  intense  ven- 
eration. It  is  not  that  such  feelings  are  dead  in  him,  but 
•  hat  he  has  bestowed  them  on  one  object,  and  they  are 
claimed  for  another.  To  which  they  are  most  due  is  a  ques- 
tion of  justice ;  he  may  be  wrong  in  his  decision,  and  his 
worship  may  be  idolatrous ;  but  so  also  may  be  the  worship 
*-hich  his  opponents  call  upon  him  to  render.  If  indeed  it 
can  be  shown  that  a  man  admires  and  reverences  nothing,  he 
may  justly  be  taxed  with  want  of  humility ;  but  this  is  at  va- 
riance with  the  very  notion  of  an  earnest  character ;  for  its 
earnestness  consists  in  its  devotion  to  some  one  object,  as  op- 
posed to  a  proud  or  contemptuous  indifference.  But  if  it  be 
meant  that  reverence  in  itself  is  good,  so  that  the  more  objects 
of  veneration  we  have,  the  better  is  our  character,  this  is  to 
confound  the  essential  difference  between  veneration  and  love. 
The  excellence  of  love  is  its  universality ;  we  are  told  that 
even  the  highest  object  of  all  cannot  be  loved,  if  inferior  ob- 
jects are  hated.  And  with  some  exaggeration  in  the  expres- 
sion, we  may  admit  the  truth  of  Coleridge's  lines, 

He  prayeth  well,  who  loveth  well 
Both  man,  and  bird,  and  beast ; 

insomuch  that  if  we  were  to  hear  of  a  man  sacrificing  even 
his  life  to  save  that  of  an  animal,  we  could  not  help  admiring 
him.  But  the  excellence  of  veneration  consists  purely  in  its 
being  fixed  upon  a  worthy  object ;  when  felt  indiscriminately 
it  is  idolatry  or  insanity.  To  tax  any  one,  therefore,  with 
want  of  reverence,  because  he  pays  no  respect  to  what  we 
venerate,  is  either  irrelevant,  or  is  a  mere  confusion.  The 
fact,  so  far  as  it  is  true,  is  no  reproach,  but  an  honour ;  be- 
cause to  reverence  all  persons  and  all  things  is  absolutely 
wrong :  reverence  shown  to  that  which  does  not  deserve  it, 
is  no  virtue,  no,  nor  even  an  amiable  weakness,  but  a  plain 


LECTURE    V.  241 

folly  and  sin.  But  if  it  be  meant  that  he  is  wanting  in  proper 
reverence,  not  respecting  what  is  really  to  be  respected,  that  is 
assuming  the  whole  question  at  issue,  because  what  we  call 
divine  he  calls  an  idol ;  and  as,  supposing  that  we  are  in  the 
right,  we  are  bound  to  fall  down  and  worship,  so,  supposing 
him  to  be  in  the  right,  he  is  no  less  bound  to  pull  it  to  the 
ground  and  destroy  it. 

I  have  said  thus  much  not  only  to  do  justice  to  the  puritans, 
out  because  this  charge  of  want  of  humility  is  one  frequently 
brought  by  weaker  and  baser  minds  against  the  stronger  and 
nobler ;  not  seldom  by  those  who  are  at  once  arrogant  and 
indifferent,  against  those  who  are  in  truth  as  humble  as  they 
are  zealous.  But  returning  to  our  immediate  subject,  we 
see  that  the  puritans  united  in  themselves  two  points  which 
gave  to  their  party  a  double  appearance ;  and  at  a  later  pe- 
riod, when  the  union  between  the  two  was  no  longer  believed 
in,  they  excited  in  the  very  same  minds  a  mingled  feeling  ; 
admiration  as  far  as  regarded  one  point,  alienation  as  regard- 
ed the  other.  The  puritans  wished  to  alter  the  existing 
church  system  for  one  which  they  believed  to  be  freer  and 
better ;  and  so  far  they  resembled  a  common  popular  party  : 
but  inasmuch  as  in  this  and  all  other  matters  their  great  prin- 
ciple was,  conformity  to  the  Scripture,  and  they  pushed  this 
to  an  extravagant  excess,  because  their  interpretation  of 
Scripture  was  continually  faulty,  there  was,  together  with 
their  free  political  spirit,  a  narrow  spirit  in  things  religious, 
which  shocked  not  only  the  popular  party  of  the  succeeding 
age,  but  many  even  in  their  own  day,  who  politically  enter- 
tained opinions  far  narrower  than  theirs.  In  Elizabeth's 
reign,  however,  they  had  scarcely  begun  to  form  a  political 
party  ;  their  views  affected  the  church  government  only,  and 
contemplated  no  alteration  in  the  spirit  of  the  monarchy, 
although  it  was  evident,  that  if  the  crown  continued  to  resist 
their  efforts  in  church  matters,  they  would  end  by  resisting 


242  LECTURE    V. 

not  only  its  ecclesiastical  supremacy,  but  its  actual  ascend- 
ency in  the  constitution  altogether. 

3d.  The  Roman  Catholic  party  could  not,  as  I  have  said, 
act  openly  in  their  own  name,  because  their  system  had  been 
put  down  by  law ;  and,  as  they  were  at  present  regarded  as 
far  worse  in  themselves  and  far  more  dangerous  than  the 
puritans,  all  their  movements  and  all  expressions  of  their 
opinions  were  restrained  with  greater  severity.  Denying 
like  the  puritans  the  royal  supremacy,  and  exposed  for  so  do- 
ing  to  the  heaviest  penalties,  their  language  sometimes  as- 
sumed  a  strong  political  character,  and  they  spoke  freely  of 
the  duty  of  disobeying  and  deposing  those  tyrannical  princes, 
on  whom  the  church  by  the  pope's  voice  had  already  pro- 
nounced its  sentence  of  condemnation.  It  was  the  language 
of  the  old  Guelf  party,  which  some  even  to  this  hour  regard 
as  popular  and  liberal.  But  to  oppose  a  lighter  tyranny  in 
the  name  of  a  heavier  cannot  be  to  serve  the  cause  of  good 
government ;  and  the  moral  and  spiritual  dominion  of  the 
papacy  was  now  become  the  great  evil  of  the  world,  as  it  was 
pressing  upon  those  parts  of  man's  nature  which  were  stirring 
for  themselves,  and  whose  silence  would  be  no  longer  sleep 
but  death. 

The  language  of  the  Roman  Catholics  did  not  mislead  the 
mass  of  the  English  nation,  but  only  made  themselves  more 
odious.  The  serpent's  wisdom  of  Elizabeth  cannot  be  denied 
by  the  bitterest  of  her  enemies.  With  incomparable  ability 
she  made  herself  personally  the  darling  of  her  people  from 
the  first  year  of  her  reign  to  the  last.  Her  behaviour  when 
she  passed  through  the  city  in  state  on  the  day  preceding  her 
coronation,  or  when  thirty  years  afterwards  she  visited  and 
harangued  her  troops  at  Tilbury,  or  when  at  the  very  end  of 
her  reign  she  granted  so  gracefully  the  petition  of  the  house 
of  commons  against  monopolies,  was  all  of  the  same  charac- 
ter ;  the  frank  and  gracious  and  noble  bearing  of  a  sovereign 


LECTURE    V  243 

feeling  herself  at  once  beloved  and  respected,  knowing  the 
greatness  of  her  place,  and  sincerely,  if  not  habitually,  ap. 
preciating  its  duties.  Her  personal  qualities  made  her  dear 
to  her  subjects,  and  assisted  them  in  seeing  clearly  that  her 
cause  and  theirs  were  one.  Conspiracy  at  home  and  open 
war  abroad,  the  excommunications  of  Rome,  the  Armadas  of 
Spain,  the  assassination  plots  of  the  Catholics,  only  bound  her 
people's  love  to  her  more  firmly.  Her  arbitrary  acts,  and 
still  more  arbitrary  language,  the  severities,  illegalities,  and 
cruelties  of  her  government  towards  the  parties  who  opposed 
her,  the  people  at  large  forgot  or  approved  of.  Nothing  was 
unjust,  nothing  was  cruel,  against  the  enemies  of  one  whom 
the  nation  so  loved ;  the  almost  universal  voice  of  England 
called  for  the  death  of  Mary  Stuart,  because  the  people  be- 
lieved her  life  to  be  incompatible  with  the  safety  of  their 
beloved  queen.  Whilst  Elizabeth  lived,  political  parties, 
properly  so  called,  were  incapable  of  existing;  it  was  the 
whole  English  nation  on  one  side,  and  on  the  other  a  few 
conspirators. 

But  another  scene  was  preparing,  and  when  her  successor 
came  to  the  throne,  the  state  of  parties  assumed  a  different  as- 
pect; and  political  elements  were  added  to  the  religious, 
rivalling  or  surpassing  them  in  the  interest  which  they  awa- 
kened. This  later  stage  of  what  I  have  called  the  religious 
movement  of  modern  English  history  will  be  considered  in 
the  following  lecture. 


NOTES 


TO 


LECTURE     V 


NOTE  1.— Page  220. 

a  *  *  Still  more  precious  is  the  story  of  his  own  time  recorded 
oy  a  statesman,  who  has  trod  the  field  of  political  action,  and  has 
stood  near  the  source  of  events  and  lookt  into  it,  when  he  has  in- 
deed a  statesman's  discernment,  and  knows  how  men  act  and  why. 
Such  are  the  great  works  of  Clarendon,  of  Tacitus,  of  Polybius, 
above  all  of  Thucydides.  The  latter  has  hitherto  been,  and  is 
likely  to  continue  unequalled.  For  the  sphere  of  history  since  his 
time  has  been  so  manifoldly  enlarged,  it  is  scarcely  possible  now 
for  any  one  mind  to  circumnavigate  it.  Besides,  the  more  fastidious 
nicety  of  modern  manners  shrinks  from  that  naked  exposure  of  the 
character  as  well  as  of  the  limbs,  which  the  ruder  ancients  took  no 
offence  at ;  and  machinery  is  scarcely  doing  less  toward  super- 
seding personal  energy  in  politics  and  war,  than  in  our  manufac- 
tures ;  so  that  history  may  come  ere  long  to  be  written  without 
mention  of  a  name.  In  Thucydides  too,  and  in  him  alone,  there  is 
that  union  of  the  poet  with  the  philosopher,  which  is  essential  to 
form  a  perfect  historian.  He  has  the  imaginative  plastic  power, 
which  makes  events  pass  in  living  array  before  us,  combined  with 
a  profound  reflective  insight  into  their  causes  and  laws ;  and  all  his 
other  faculties  are  under  the  dominion  of  the  most  penetrative  prac- 
tical understanding." 

J.  C.  HARE.    "  Guesses  at  Truth,"  p.  339 


NOTES    TO   LECTURE    V.  245 


NOTE  2.— Page  223. 

"  Liberal  principles  and  popular  principles  are  by  no  means  neces- 
sarily the  same  ;  and  it  is  of  importance  to  be  aware  of  the  difference 
between  them.  Popular  principles  are  opposed  simply  to  restraint 
— liberal  principles  to  unjust  restraint.  Popular  principles  sym- 
pathize with  all  who  are  subject  to  authority,  and  regard  with  sus- 
picion all  punishments ;  liberal  principles  sympathize,  on  the  other 
hand,  with  authority,  whenever  the  evil  tendencies  of  human  nature 
are  more  likely  to  be  shown  in  disregarding  it  than  in  abusing  it. 
Popular  principles  seem  to  have  but  one  object — the  deliverance  of 
the  many  from  the  control  of  the  few.  Liberal  principles,  while 
generally  favourable  to  this  same  object,  yet  pursue  it  as  a  means,  not 
as  an  end ;  and  therefore,  they  support  the  subjection  of  the  many 
to  the  few  under  certain  circumstances,  where  the  great  end,  which 
they  steadily  keep  in  view,  is  more  likely  to  be  promoted  by  sub- 
jection than  by  independence.  For  the  great  end  of  liberal  princi- 
ples is  indeed  '  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number,'  if  we 
understand  that  the  happiness  of  man  consists  more  in  his  intellec- 
tual well-doing  than  in  his  physical ;  and  yet  more  in  his  moral  and 
religious  excellence  than  in  his  intellectual. 

"  It  must  be  allowed,  however,  that  the  fault  of  popular  princi- 
ples as  distinguished  from  liberal,  has  been  greatly  provoked  by  the 
long-continued  prevalence  of  principles  of  authority  which  are  no 
less  illiberal.  Power  has  been  so  constantly  perverted  that  it  has 
come  to  be  generally  suspected.  Liberty  has  been  so  constantly 
unjustly  restrained,  that  it  has  been  thought  impossible  that  it  should 
ever  be  indulged  too  freely.  Popular  feeling  is  not  quick  in  obser- 
ving the  change  of  times  and  circumstances :  it  is  with  difficulty 
brought  to  act  against  a  long-standing  evil ;  but,  being  once  set  in 
motion,  it  is  apt  to  overshoot  its  mark,  and  to  continue  to  cry  out 
against  an  evil  long  after  it  has  disappeared,  and  the  opposite  evil 
is  become  most  to  be  dreaded.  Something  of  this  excessive  recoil 
of  feeling  may  be  observed,  I  think,  in  the  continued  cry  against  the 
severity  of  the  penal  code,  as  distinguished  from  its  other  defects ; 
and  the  same  disposition  is  shown  in  the  popular  clamour  against 

21* 


246  NOTES 

military  flogging,  and  in  the  complaints  which  are  often  made  against 
the  existing  system  of  discipline  in  our  schools." 

DR.  ARNOLD'S  Letter  '  On  the  Discipline  of  Public  Schools,'  in  the  '  Quar- 
terly Journal  of  Education.'    Vol.  ix.  p.  280.    1835. 

In  the  same  letter  occurs  the  following  remark,  which,  though 
referring  only  to  the  author's  ideal  of  school  discipline  for  young 
boys,  admits  of  a  much  more  enlarged  application  to  men  in  their 
social  and  political  relations  : 

"  *  *  This  would  be  a  discipline  truly  generous  and  wise,  in  one 
word,  truly  Christian — making  an  increase  of  dignity  the  certain 
consequence  of  increased  virtuous  effort,  but  giving  no  countenance 
to  that  barbarian  pride  which  claims  the  treatment  of  a  freeman  and 
an  equal,  while  it  cherishes  all  the  carelessness,  the  folly,  and  the 
low  and  selfish  principle  of  a  slave,"  p.  285. 

NOTE  3.— Page  224. 

"  *  *  The  speech  ascribed  to  Robespierre,  when  refusing  U 
spare  Lavoisier,  '  the  republic  does  not  want  chemists,'  is  just  of 
the  same  character  with  the  speeches  of  Cleon  at  Athens,  and  bin 
expresses  the  indifference  of  the  vulgar,  whether  aristocrats  or  dem- 
ocrats, for  an  eminence  with  which  they  have  no  sympathy."  *  * 
ARNOLD'S  Thucydides.  Note,  B  viii.  89. 

NOTE  4.— Page  226. 

There  may  be  a  doubt  whether  Hume's  abhorrence  of  Puritan- 
ism is  to  be  regarded  as  the  sole  or  chief  explanation  of  the  politi- 
cal character  of  his  history.  But  be  that  as  it  may,  it  is  certain 
that  his  careless  and  epicurean  temper  was  adverse  not  only  to 
the  earnestness  and  devotion  of  the  Puritans,  but  to  earnestness  and 
devotion  in  any  form.  He  was  a  cold-hearted  unbeliever — self- 
satisfied  in  a  shallow  philosophy ;  and  as  an  historian,  indolent  in 
research  and  insidiously  unfair  in  every  thing  directly  or  remotely 
connected  with  the  Church  of  Christ.  It  is  inveterate  hostility  to 
religion  that  has  engendered  in  his  history,  and  that  too  under  a  de- 
ceptive outward  decorum,  not  a  few  of  an  historian's  worst  vices — 


TO    LECTURE    V.  247 

sophistry,  misrepresentation,  suppression  of  the  truth,  falsification, 
malignant  hatred  of  Christian  faith  and  holiness  ;  so  that  it  has  come 
to  be  said  without  exaggeration,  "  that  there  is  less  in  the  popular 
histoiy  of  the  Christian  kingdom  of  England  which  implies  the 
reality  of  religion, — less  acknowledgment  of  the  laws  and  agents 
of  a  Divine  government,  partly  concealed  and  partly  manifested,  to 
which  the  temporal  rulers  of  the  world  are  even  here  amenable, — 
than  in  the  legends,  or  even  the  political  history  of  Greece  and 
Rome," 

Abundant  proof  of  Hume's  untrustworthiness  may  be  found  in  an 
Article  in  the  Quarterly  Review  for  March,  1844,  (No.  146,)  ia 
which  many  passages  of  his  history  are  thoroughly  discussed  to  ex- 
emplify his  character  as  an  historian. 

INOTE  5. — Page  227. 

**  Aristophanes  had  to  deal  with  Democracy,  not  when  she  was 
old,  but  when  her  heart  was  high  and  her  pulse  full,  and  when 
with  some  of  the  nobleness  and  generosity  peculiar  to  youth,  she 
had  still  more  of  its  heat,  impetuosity,  and  self-willedness.  The 
old  age  of  Athenian  democracy  (and  a  premature  old  age  it  neces- 
sarily was)  must  be  looked  for  in  the  public  speeches  of  Demosthe- 
nes, and  in  the  warning  voice  of  that  eminent  statesman,  fraught 
with  all  that  is  great,  holy,  and  commanding,  yet  powerless  to  put 
more  than  a  momentary  life  into  limbs  paralyzed  and  effete  with 
previous  excesses.  For  her  midday  of  life  we  must  go  to  the  in- 
tervening speeches  of  Lysias,  a  writer  full  of  ability  and  talent,  but 
a  thorough  son  of  democracy,  and  for  which  the  calamities  suffered 
by  himself  and  his  family  under  the  oligarchal  party  form  great  ex- 
cuse. The  very  pages  of  this  writer  smell,  as  it  were,  of  blood  and 
confiscation ;  nor  does  simple  death  always  content  him ;  thrice, 
sometimes,  would  he  'slay  his  slain!'  In  running  down  his  prey, 
this  orator  shows  a  business-like  energy,  unexampled  in  any  other 
Grecian  advocate :  none  hangs  a  culprit,  or  one  whom  he  would 
fain  make  appear  as  such,  so  cleverly  on  the  horns  of  a  dilemma, 
and  his  notions  of  time,  when  in  pursuit  of  democratic  vengeance, 
are  truly  royal : — *  Nullum  tempus  Lysiee  occurrit.'  *  Numbers' 
are  his  chief  view  of  political  society,  and  *  Your  Manyship,'  (ri 


248  NOTES 


his  idol.  Generous  ideas  of  rank-  and  birth,  of  the 
graces  and  accomplishments  of  society;  seem  utterly  unknown  to 
him:  energy  and  business  evidently  comprise  his  vocabulary  of 
excellence,  while  his  stock  in  trade  is  all  the  gloomy  images 
that  pervade  a  disturbed  state  of  society  ;  strife,  sedition,  discord, 
continual  fluctuation  of  government,  addresses  to  the  passions,  not 
to  the  reason,  the  voice  of  law  stifled,  or  silent,  that  of  party  and 
faction  perpetually  predominant  ;  add  exile,  proscription,  fine,  hem- 
lock and  blood  spilt  upon  the  ground  almost  like  water,  and  we 
have  the  ingredients  of  a  Lysiac  speech,  and  the  corresponding 
events  of  his  period  of  history,  pretty  well  in  our  hands." 

Mitchell's  Note  (Aristophanes'  '  Knights,'  v.  10C2.) 

NOTE  6.—  Page  227. 

When  Pericles  is  spoken  of  as  the  leader  of  a  party,  it  is  proper 
to  bear  in  mind  the  position  which  history  describes  him  as  having 
held  in  Athens,  and  the  influence  or  rather  control  he  exercised 
there  over  the  people  during  his  most  remarkable  administration. 
For  his  independence  is  described  by  Thucydides  to  have  been 
such  that  he  was  the  leader  of  the  multitude  but  never  led  by  them 
—  that  he  could  brave  their  anger  and  resist  the  popular  will  —  and 
that,  in  short,  the  government,  though  called  a  democracy,  was  such 
only  in  name,  for  it  was  in  one  chief  man  : 

"  *  *  amoy  <5'  %v  on  ixeivos  pev  Swarfc  <&v  TW  rt  <Jfj<5//ort  Kat  TTJ  yvtfyr),  xpjj- 
/jarajv  re  <5ia^>avt5f  d<Su>p<5raroj  ycv6pcvos,  Karux£  T&  7rXi}&>f  fXewflfpwf.  Kal  olic  rjytro 
pa\\ov  &7r'  OVTOV  fj  avrbs  %ye,  Sid  rb  pi]  KTW/UVOJ  «£  ob  irpo<TT)K6vTuv  rf)v  dvvantv 
irpoj  tidovfiv  TI  \fysiv,  aAA'  £%(i>v  fff'  a^u'ocei  ical  irpbg  dpyqv  n  avrtiirtiv.  bit6n 
yovv  aiffOoird  n  avroiis  Trapa  xatpbv  8/3ptt  Bapffovvras,  X/yuv  KaTfir\tiffffev  cnt  TO 
QoflEtadai,  Kat  &s.St6ras  av  aXrfywf  avriKadiarrj  TraXtv  tm  r3  Oapaeiv.  eyiyverd 
TC  X<Jyq>  jJitv  SvnoKparia,  cpyw  fit  li:b  rov  Trpwrou  &v8pbs  apx*7-  oi  tie  fivrspov  laot 
avrol  //aXXov  Trpoj  AXX^Xouj  fares,  KUI  dpeyd/ievoi  row  wpwrof  IKCLCTOS  yiyveoQuu, 
STpditovro  na&  fjdovas  ru>  bfyuf  Kal  ra  Trpdyfiara  IvSt&ovcu." 

Thucydides>\i.  65 

NOTE  7.—  Page  228. 

4  All  the  ancient  writers,  without  exception,  call  the  government 
of  Dionysius  a  tyranny.  This,  as  is  well  known,  was  with  them 


TO  LECTURE    V.  249 

no  vague  and  disputable  term,  resting  on  party  impressions  of  char- 
acter, and  thus  liable  to  be  bestowed  or  denied  according  to  the 
political  opinions  of  the  speaker  or  writer.  It  describes  a  particular 
kind  of  government,  the  merits  of  which  might  be  differently  esti- 
mated, but  the  fact  of  its  existence  admitted  of  no  dispute.  Dio- 
nysius  was  not  a  king,  because  hereditary  monarchy  was  not  the 
constitution  of  Syracuse  ;  he  was  not  the  head  of  the  aristocratical 
party,  enjoying  supreme  power,  inasmuch  as  they  were  in  possession 
of  the  government,  and  he  was  their  most  distinguished  member ; 
on  the  contrary,  the  richer  classes  were  opposed  to  him,  and  he 
found  his  safety  in  banishing  them  in  a  mass,  and  confiscating  their 
property.  Nor  was  he  the  leader  of  a  democracy,  like  Pericles  and 
Demosthenes,  all-powerful  inasmuch  as  the  free  love  and  admira- 
tion of  the  people  made  his  will  theirs  ;  for  what  democratical 
leader  ever  surrounded  himself  with  foreign  mercenaries,  or  fixed 
his  residence  in  the  citadel,  or  kept  up  in  his  style  of  living,  and  in 
the  society  which  surrounded  him,  the  state  and  luxury  of  a  king's 
court?  He  was  not  an  hereditary  constitutional  king,  nor  the 
leader  of  one  of  the  great  divisions  of  the  commonwealth ;  but  he 
had  gained  sovereign  power  by  fraud,  and  maintained  it  by  force  : 
he  represented  no  party,  he  sought  to  uphold  no  ascendency  but 
that  of  his  own  individual  self;  and  standing  thus  apart  from  the 
sympathies  of  his  countrymen,  his  objects  were  essentially  selfish, 
his  own  safety,  his  own  enjoyments,  his  own  power,  and  his  own 
glory.  Feeling  that  he  had  no  right  to  be  where  he  was,  he  was 
full  of  suspicion  and  jealousy,  and  oppressed  his  subjects  with  taxes 
at  once  heavy  and  capriciously  levied,  not  only  that  he  might  enrich 
himself,  but  that  he  might  impoverish  and  weaken  them.  A  gov- 
ernment carried  on  thus  manifestly  for  the  good  of  one  single 
governor,  with  an  end  of  such  unmixed  selfishness,  and  resting 
mainly  upon  the  fear  and  not  the  love  of  its  people ;  with  what- 
ever brilliant  qualities  it  might  happen  to  be  gilded,  and  however 
free  it  might  be  from  acts  of  atrocious  cruelty,  was  yet  called  by 
the  Greeks  a  tyranny." 
#  *  *  *  *  *  * 

"  The  Greeks  had  no  abhorrence  for  kings  :  the  descendant  of  a 
hero  race,  ruling  over  a  people  whom  his  fathers  had  ruled  from 
time  immemorial,  was  no  subject  of  obloquy  either  with  the  people 


250  NOTES 

or  with  the  philosophers.  But  a  tyrant,  a  man  of  low  or  ordinary 
birth,  who  by  force  or  fraud  had  seated  himself  on  the  necks  of  his 
countrymen,  to  gorge  each  prevailing  passion  of  his  nature  at  their 
cost,  with  no  principle  but  the  interest  of  his  own  power — such  a 
man  was  regarded  as  a  wild  beast,  that  had  broken  into  the  fold  of 
civilized  society,  and  whom  it  was  every  one's  right  and  duty,  by 
any  means,  or  with  any  weapon,  presently  to  destroy.  Such  mere 
monsters  of  selfishness  Christian  Europe  has  rarely  seen.  If  the 
claim  to  reign  *  by  the  grace  of  God'  has  given  an  undue  sanction 
to  absolute  power,  yet  it  has  diffused  at  the  same  time  a  sense  of 
the  responsibilities  of  power,  such  as  the  tyrants,  and  even  the 
kings  of  the  later  age  of  Greece,  never  knew.  The  most  unprin- 
cipled of  modern  sovereigns  would  yet  have  acknowledged,  that  he 
owed  a  duty  to  his  people,  for  the  discharge  of  which  he  was 
answerable  to  God ;  but  the  Greek  tyrant  regarded  his  subjects  as 
the  mere  instruments  of  his  own  gratification ;  fortune  or  his  own 
superiority  had  given  him  extraordinary  means  of  indulging  his 
favourite  passions,  and  it  would  be  folly  to  forego  the  opportunity. 
It  is  this  total  want  of  regard  for  his  fellow-creatures,  the  utter 
sacrifice  of  their  present  and  future  improvement,  for  the  sake  of 
objects  purely  personal,  which  constitutes  the  guilt  of  Dionysius 
and  his  fellow-tyrants.  In  such  men  all  virtue  was  necessarily 
blighted  :  neither  genius,  nor  courage,  nor  occasional  signs  of 
human  feeling  could  atone  for  the  deliberate  wickedness  of  their 
system  of  tyranny."  *  * 

History  of  Rome,  i.  ch.  21. 

NOTE  8.— Page  228. 

This  subject  of  the  relation  of  the  papal  power  to  the  monarchies 
of  Europe  during  the  middle  ages  has,  I  presume,  been  adverted  to 
by  Dr.  Arnold  in  two  of  his  pamphlets  also,  which  I  have  not  had 
however  the  opportunity  of  referring  to,  one  on  the  "  Roman  Catho- 
lic Claims"  in  1828,  and  the  other  on  "  the  Principles  of  Church 
Reform"  in  1833.  His  biographer  speaks  of  them  as  "earlier 
works  in  which  he  vindicated  the  characters  of  the  eminent  popes 
of  the  middle  ages,  Gregory  VII.  and  Innocent  III.,  long  before 
that  great  change  in  the  popular  view  respecting  them,  which  in 


TO    LECTURE    V.  251 

this,  as  in  many  other  instances,  he  had  forestalled  at  a  t  ne  when 
his  opinion  was  condemned  as  the  height  of  paradox." 

(Chap.  x.  of  "  Life  and  Correspondence*") 

A.  discussion  of  this  subject  will  be  found  in  an  article  on  "  Miche- 
let's  History  of  France,"  in  No.  159,  (January,  1844,)  of  the 
Edinburgh  Review,  an  authority,  certainly,  as  little  likely  as  any 
to  favour  high  views  of  church  authority.  The  reviewer's  purpose 
is  to  show,  that  "  the  popes  were  not  so  entirely  in  the  wrong,  as 
historians  have  deemed  them,  in  their  disputes  with  the  emperors, 
and  with  the  kings  of  England  and  France  ;"  and  that  the  church 
"  was  the  great  improver  and  civilizer  of  Europe."  "  It  would," 
he  observes,  "  do  many  English  thinkers  much  good  to  acquaint 
themselves  with  the  grounds  on  which  the  best  continental  minds, 
without  disguising  one  particle  of  the  evil  which  existed  openly  or 
latently,  in  the  Romish  church,  are  on  the  whole  convinced  that  it 
was  not  only  a  beneficent  institution,  but  the  only  means  capable  of 
being  now  assigned,  by  which  Europe  could  have  been  reclaimed 
from  barbarism." 

"  Who,"  it  is  asked,  "  in  the  middle  ages  were  worthier  of  power 
than  the  clergy  ?  Did  they  not  need  all,  and  more  than  all  the  in- 
fluence they  could  acquire,  when  they  could  not  be  kings  or  em- 
perors, and  when  kings  and  emperors  were  among  those  whoso 
passion  and  arrogance  they  had  to  admonish  and  govern  1  The 
great  Ambrose,  refusing  absolution  to  Theodosius  until  he  per- 
formed penance  for  a  massacre,  was  a  type  of  what  these  men  had 
to  do.  In  an  age  of  violence  and  brigandage,  who  but  the  church 
could  insist  on  justice,  and  forbearance,  and  reconciliation  1  In  an 
age  when  the  weak  were  prostrate  at  the  feet  of  the  strong,  who 
was  there  but  the  Church  to  plead  to  the  strong  for  the  weak  1 
They  were  the  depositaries  of  the  only  moral  power  to  which  the 
great  were  amenable  ;  they  alone  had  a  right  to  remind  kings  and 
potentates  of  responsibility ;  to  speak  to  them  of  humility,  charity, 
and  peace.  Even  in  the  times  of  the  first  ferocious  invaders,  the 
'  Recits^  of  M.  Thierry  (though  the  least  favourable  of  the  modern 
French  historians  to  the  Romish  clergy)  show,  at  what  peril  to 
themselves,  the  prelates  of  the  church  continually  stepped  between 
the  oppressor  and  his  victim.  Almost  all  the  great  social  improve- 


252  NOTES 

ments  which  took  place  were  accomplished  under  their  influence. 
They  at  all  times  took  part  with  the  kings  against  the  feudal 
anarchy.  The  enfranchisement  of  the  mass  of  the  people  from 
personal  servitude,  they  not  only  favoured,  but  inculcated  as  a 
Christian  duty." 

"  *  *  Now  we  say  that  the  priesthood  never  could  have  stood 
their  ground  in  such  an  age,  against  kings  and  their  powerful  vassals, 
as  an  independent  moral  authority,  entitled  to  advise,  to  reprimand, 
and  if  need  were,  to  denounce,  if  they  had  not  been  bound  together 
into  an  European  body  under  a  government  of  their  own.  They 
must  otherwise  have  grovelled  from  the  first  in  that  slavish  sub- 
servience into  which  they  sank  at  last.  No  local,  no  merely  na- 
tional organization,  would  have  sufficed.  The  state  has  too  strong 
a  hold  upon  an  exclusively  national  corporation.  Nothing  but  an 
authority  recognised  by  many  nations,  and  not  essentially  dependent 
tipon  any  one,  could  in  that  age  have  been  adequate  to  the  post. 
It  required  a  pope  to  speak  with  authority  to  kings  and  emperors. 
Had  an  individual  priest  even  had  the  courage  to  tell  them  that 
they  had  violated  the  law  of  God,  his  voice,  not  being  the  voice  of 
the  Church,  would  not  have  been  heeded.  That  the  pope,  when 
he  pretended  to  depose  kings,  or  made  war  upon  them  with  temporal 
arms,  went  beyond  his  province,  needs  hardly,  in  the  present  day, 
be  insisted  upon.  But  when  he  claimed  the  right  of  censuring  and 
denouncing  them  with  whatever  degree  of  solemnity,  in  the  name 
of  the  moral  law  which  all  recognised,  he  assumed  a  function  ne- 
cessary at  all  times,  and  which,  in  those  days,  no  one  except 
the  Church  could  assume,  or  was  in  any  degree  qualified  to  exer- 
cise." 

The  view  wnich  Dr.  Arnold  appears  to  have  taken  of  the  great 
mediaeval  struggle,  whether  the  religious  or  the  military  principle — 
the  spirit  of  the  Christian  church  or  the  arbitrary  temper  of  lawless 
feudalism,  should  predominate,  is  also  strongly  presented  in  a  val- 
uable article,  entitled,  "  St.  Anselm  and  William  Rufus,"  in  the 
"  British  Critic,"  (No.  65,  Jan.,  1843,)  on  the  controversy  in  Eng- 
land between  that  saintly  and  heroic  primate,  and  the  second  of  the 
Norman  tyrants,  of  whom  it  was  said,  "  Never  a  night  came  but 
he  lay  down  a  worse  man  than  he  rose  ;  and  never  a  morning,  but 
he  rose  worse  than  he  lay  down." 


TO    LECTURE    V.  253 

"  The  great  controversies  of  the  early  church,  and  those  of  the 
middle  ages,  differed  in  two  points.  Those  of  the  first  five  centu- 
ries were  for  the  most  part  carried  on  with  persons  out  of  the  pale 
of  the  Church,  and  on  points  of  faith  and  doctrine  :  those  of  the 
middle  ages  were  mainly  connected  with  life  and  morals,  and  were 
with  men  who  knew  no  spiritual  authority  but  hers.  Her  first  op- 
ponents, quarrelling  with  her  as  a  teacher  of  religion,  broke  off 
from  her,  and  set  up  parallel  and  antagonist  systems  of  their  own ; 
they  were  heretics  and  schismatics,  self-condemned,  and  clearly 
marked  out  as*  such  by  their  own  formal  and  deliberate  acts.  There 
was  no  mistaking  the  grounds  or  the  importance  of  the  dispute. 
But  in  the  eleventh  century,  these  heresies  were  things  of  a  past 
age  in  the  west — lifeless  and  inoperative  carcasses  of  old  enemies, 
from  whom  the  Church  had  little  comparatively  to  fear  for  the  pres- 
ent. She  had  living  antagonists  to  cope  with,  but  they  were  of  a 
different  sort.  They  were  no  longer  the  sophist  and  declaimer  of 
the  schools,  but  mail-clad  barons.  Just  as  she  had  subdued  the  in- 
telligence and  refinement  of  the  old  Roman  empire,  it  was  swept 
away,  and  she  was  left  alone  with  its  wild  destroyers.  Her  com- 
mission was  changed ;  she  had  now  to  tame  and  rule  the  barba- 
rians. But  upon  them  the  voice  which  had  rebuked  the  heretic 
fell  powerless.  While  they  pressed  into  her  fold,  they  overwhelmed 
all  her  efforts  to  reclaim  them,  and  filled  her,  from  east  to  west, 
with  violence  and  stunning  disorder.  When,  therefore,  she  again 
roused  herself  to  confront  the  world,  her  position  and  difficulties 
had  shifted.  Her  enemy  was  no  longer  heresy,  but  vice, — wicked- 
ness which  wrought  with  a  high  hand, — foul  and  rampant,  like  that 
of  Sodom,  or  the  men  before  the  flood.  It  was  not  the  Faith,  but 
the  first  principles  of  duty — justice,  mercy,  and  truth — which  were 
directly  endangered  by  the  unbridled  ambition  and  licentiousness  of 
the  feudal  aristocracy,  who  were  then  masters  of  Europe.  These 
proud  and  resolute  men  were  no  enemy  out  of  doors ;  they  were 
within  her  pale,  professed  allegiance  to  her,  and  to  be  her  protectors  ; 
claimed  and  exercised  important  rights  in  her  government  and  in- 
ternal arrangements,  plausible  in  their  origin,  strengthened  by  pre- 
scription, daily  placed  further  out  of  the  reach  of  attack  by  over- 
extending  encroachments,  and  guarded  with  the  jealousy  of  men 
who  felt  that  the  restraints  of  church  discipline,  if  ever  they 


254  NOTES 

closed  round  them,  would  be  fetters  of  iron.  And  with  this  fierce 
nobility  she  had  to  fight  the  battle  of  the  poor  and  weak ;  to  settle 
the  question  whether  Christian  religion  and  the  offices  of  the 
Church  were  to  be  any  thing  more  than  names,  and  honours,  and 
endowments,  trappings  of  chivalry  and  gentle  blood  ;  whether  there 
were  yet  strength  left  upon  earth  to  maintain  and  avenge  the  laws 
of  God,  whoever  might  break  them.  She  had  to  stand  between 
the  oppressor  and  his  prey ;  to  compel  respect  for  what  is  pure  and 
sacred,  from  the  lawless  and  powerful." — Vol.  33,  p.  7. 

NOTE  9. — Page  231. 

*  *  "  Let  me  notice  two  or  three  things,  in  which  the  spirit  of 
Christianity  has  breathed,  and  will,  we  may  hope,  continue  to 
breathe  more  fully,  through  our  system  of  law  and  government. 
First,  let  us  notice  our  criminal  law.  Now,  in  unchristian  coun- 
tries, criminal  law  has  mostly  been  either  too  lax  or  too  bloody : 
too  lax  in  a  rude  state  of  society,  because  the  inconvenience  of 
crimes  was  less  felt,  and  their  guilt  was  little  regarded  ;  too  bloody 
in  a  more  refined  state,  strange  as  it  may  at  first  appear,  because 
the  inconvenience  of  crimes,  and  particularly  of  those  against 
property,  is  felt  excessively  ;  and  the  sacredness  of  human  life,  and 
the  moral  evil  done  to  a  people  by  making  them  familiar  with 
bloody  punishments,  are  not  apt  to  be  regarded  by  the  mere  spirit 
of  worldly  selfishness.  Now,  our  laws  for  many  years  were,  in 
these  points,  quite  unchristian ;  they  were  passed  in  utter  disregard 
of  our  national  pledges  to  follow  Christ's  law  ;  but  latterly  a  better 
spirit  has  been  awakened ;  and  men  have  felt  that  it  is  no  light 
thing  to  take  away  the  life  of  a  brother ;  that  it  is  more  Christian 
to  amend  an  offender,  if  possible,  than  to  destroy  him.  Only  let 
us  remember  that  there  is  an  error  on  the  other  side,  into  which  a 
mere  feeling  of  compassion,  if  unmixed  with  a  true  Christian  sense 
of  the  evil  of  sin,  might  possibly  lead  us.  There  is  a  danger  lest 
men  should  think  punishment  more  to  be  avoided  than  crime ;  lest 
they  should  exclaim  only  against  the  severity  of  the  one,  without 
a  due  abhorrence  of  the  guilt  of  the  other.  This,  however,  is  not 
the  spirit  of  Christianity,  but  of  its  utter  opposite — lawlessness." 
."  ARNOLD'S  Sermons,  vol.  iv.,  "  Christian  Life,  etc.," 

Sermon  XL. 


TO    LECTURE    V.  255 

"  It  is  a  melancholy  truth,"  says  Blackstone,  in  his  Commenta- 
ries, "  that  among  the  variety  of  actions  which  men  are  daily  liable 
to  commit,  no  less  than  an  hundred  and  sixty  have  been  declared, 
by  act  of  parliament,  to  be  felonies  without  benefit  of  clergy ;  or 
in  other  words,  to  be  worthy  of  instant  death." 

This  was  written  about  the  year  1760,  and  in  1809,  when  Sir  Sam- 
uel Romilly  devoted  himself  to  the  arduous  and  admirable  labour  of 
bringing  about  a  reformation  of  the  criminal  law  of  England,  it  is 
stated  by  Mr.  Alison,  in  his  History  of  Europe,  (chap.  60,)  that 
the  punishment  of  death  was  by  statute  affixed  to  the  fearful  and 
almost  incredible  number  of  above  six  hundred  different  crimes, 
"  while  the  increasing  humanity  of  the  age  had  induced  so  wide  a 
departure  from  the  strict  letter  of  the  law,  that  out  of  1872  persons 
capitally  convicted  at  the  Old  Bailey  in  seven  years,  from  1803  to 
1810,  only  one  had  been  executed."  The  enormous  list  of  capital 
crimes  was  the  result  of  what  Mr.  Alison  well  calls  the  '  separate 
and  selfish  system'  pursued  by  the  various  classes  of  property-hold- 
ers, whose  influence  was  employed  upon  parliament  in  successive 
sessions,  to  obtain  this  inhuman  safeguard  for  their  respective  in- 
terests. Well  has  Landor,  in  one  of  his  *  Imaginary  Conversations,' 
put  these  words  into  the  mouth  of  Romilly :  "  I  am  ready  to  believe 
that  Draco  himself  did  not  punish  so  many  offences  with  blood  as  we 
do,  although  he  punished  with  blood  every  one.  *  *  *  We  punish 
with  death  certain  offences  which  Draco  did  not  even  note  as 
crimes,  and  many  others  had  not  yet  sprung  up  in  society." 

It  is  only  lately  that  the  reform  begun  by  Romilly,  but  which  the 
sad  catastrophe  of  his  life  prevented  his  witnessing,  has  been  com- 
pleted so  far  as  to  limit  capital  punishment  very  much  to  crimes  af- 
fecting directly  or  indirectly  the  security  of  life,  instead  of  property. 
In  1837,  Parliament  (by  the  Acts  of  7th  Will.  IV.  and  1st  Victoria) 
removed  the  punishment  of  death  from  about  200  offences,  and  it  is 
now  left  applicable  to  treason,  murder  and  attempts  at  murder,  arson 
with  danger  to  life,  and  to  piracies,  burglaries,  and  robberies,  when 
aggravated  by  cruelty  and  violence. 

The  danger,  which  Dr.  Arnold  alludes  to  as  an  extreme  reaction 
from  an  old  abuse,  is  often  the  growth  of  a  spurious,  sentimental 
sympathy  with  guilt,  which  lessens  the  authority  and  power  of 
Law,  and  causes  low  notions  of  the  State  by  denying  to  it  the 


256  NOTES 

right  to  exact  the  forfeiture  of  life  for  any  crime.  The  reader  who 
feels  an  interest  in  these  questions  of  jurisprudence,  and  who  can 
comprehend  how  reasoning  and  imaginative  wisdom  may  be  aptly 
combined,  will  study  with  advantage  the  philosophical  series  of 
'  Sonnets  on  the  Punishment  of  Death,'  by  Mr.  Wordsworth,  in  the 
latest  volume  of  his  poems.  An  excellent  commentary  upon  them 
is  given  in  an  article  in  the  Quarterly  Review,  (No.  137,  December, 
1841,)  written,  I  believe,  by  the  author  of '  Philip  Van  Artavelde.' 

NOTE  10.— Page  231. 

"  *  *  *  Who,  if  possest  of  that  practical  wisdom  which  com- 
mands us  to  urge  on  the  sluggish  and  to  rein  in  the  impetuous,  will 
go  on  singing  the  same  song  year  after  year  ?  even  when  the  gen- 
eration he  first  endeavoured  to  arouse  by  it  has  passed  away,  and  a 
new  generation  has  sprung  up  in  its  place,  altogether  different  from 
the  first  in  its  exigencies  and  its  purposes,  in  the  tone  of  its  passions, 
the  features  of  its  understanding,  and  the  energies  of  its  will.  Who 
is  there  who  can  always  keep  equally  violent  on  the  same  side,  ex- 
cept the  slaves  and  minions  of  party,  except  those  who  are  equally 
hostile  to  all  governments,  and  those  who  are  equally  servile  to  all  1 
The  very  principles  which  yesterday  were  trodden  under  foot*  and 
therefore  needed  to  be  lifted  up  and  supported,  perhaps  to-day,  when 
they  have  risen  and  become  predominant,  may  in  their  turn  require 
to  be  kept  in  check  by  antagonist  principles.  And  this  is  the  great 
problem  for  political  wisdom,  the  rock  it  is  the  most  difficult  for  politi- 
cal integrity  not  to  split  on  :  to  know  when  to  stop  ;  to  withstand  the 
precipitous  seductions  of  success  ;  to  draw  back  from  the  friends  by 
whose  side  one  has  been  fighting,  at  the  moment  they  have  gained 
and  are  beginning  to  abuse  their  victory ;  to  join  those  whom  one 
has  hitherto  regarded  with  inevitable  and  perhaps  well-deserved 
animosity  ;  to  save  those  who  have  been  too  strong  from  becoming 
too  weak  ;  and  to  rescue  the  abusers  of  power  from  being  crushed 
by  its  abuse.  This  is  no  apology  for  a  political  turncoat :  on  the 
contrary,  though  there  may  be  a  semblance  of  similarity  between 
the  man  who  shifts  his  principles  out  of  interest,  and  the  man  who 
modifies  them  out  of  principle,  yet  what  the  latter  does  is  the  very 
reverse  of  what  the  former  does :  the  one  turns  his  back  on  the 


TO    LECTURE    V.  257 

and  runs  along  before  it;  the  other  faces  and  confronts  it. 
Such,  for  example,  was  the  conduct  of  that  most  philosophical  and 
consistent  statesman  Burke  ;  who  has  been  vilified,  because  he  did 
not,  like  some  of  his  friends,  blindly  cling  to  the  carcase  of  the 
Liberty  he  once  had  loved,  when  her  spirit  had  passed  away  from 
it,  and  a  foul  fiend  had  seized  on  it  in  her  stead  *  *." 

JULIUS  HARE'S  '  Vindication  of  Niebuhr's  History.'  p.  20 

NOTE  11.— Page  236. 

*  *  "  Those  who  teach  that  the  powers  of  man  woke  at  once 
from  a  deep  slumber  just  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
or  somewhere  in  the  course  of  the  fourteenth,  do  indeed  use  strange 
and  preposterous  language.  For  all  the  seven  centuries  during 
which  the  Western  people  had  been  growing  up,  these  powers  had 
been  most  wonderfully  developing  themselves.  In  the  conflicts  of 
political  parties,  in  the  conflicts  of  the  schools,  in  splendid  enter- 
prises and  lonely  watchings,  the  human  faculties  had  been  acquiring 
a  strength  and  an  energy  which  no  sudden  revolution,  if  it  were  the 
most  favourable  the  imagination  can  dream  of,  ever  could  have  im- 
parted to  them. 

"  But  it  is  true  also,  that  the  consciousness  of  these  powers,  the 
feeling  that  they  were  within,  and  must  come  out,  was  characteristic 
of  the  new  age.  They  had  been  exerted  before  in  ascertaining  the 
conditions  and  limitations  to  which  they  were  subject,  exerted  with 
the  pleasure  which  always  accompanies  the  feeling  of  duty,  but  not 
from  a  mere  joyous  irrepressible  impulse.  Set  free  from  the  ban- 
dages of  logic,  yet  still  with  that  sense  of  subjection  to  law  which 
was  derived  from  the  logical  age,  exercised  under  the  sense  of  a 
spiritual  Presence,  without  the  cowardly  dread  of  it ;  these  facul- 
ties began  to  assert  themselves  in  the  sixteenth  century  with  a  glad- 
ness and  freedom  of  which  there  was  no  previous,  and  perhaps 
there  has  been  no  subsequent  example.  In  those  countries  which 
had  effectually  asserted  a  national  position,  and  where  theological 
controversies  were  so  far  settled,  that  they  did  not  occupy  the  whole 
mind  of  thinking  men,  or  require  swords  to  settle  them,  this  outburst 
of  life  and  energy  took  especially  the  form  of  poetry.  English 
poetry  had  from  the  first  been  connected  with  the  feelings  of  Ref- 

22* 


258  NOTES 

ormation  and  the  rise  of  the  new  order ;  Chaucer  and  Wickliff  ex- 
pound each  other.  And  now  Protestantism  manifestly  gave  the 
direction  to  the  thoughts  of  those  who  exhibited  least  in  their  wri- 
tings of  its  exclusive  influence.  The  high  feeling  of  an  ideal  of 
excellence  which  had  descended  from  the  former  age,  and  which  in 
that  age  had  not  heen  able  to  express  itself  in  words,  now  came  in 
to  incorporate  itself  with  the  sense  of  a  meaning  and  pregnancy  in 
all  the  daily  acts  and  common  relations  of  life,  and  the  union  gave 
birth  to  dramas  as  completely  embodying  the  genius  of  modern 
Europe,  as  those  of  ^Eschylus,  Sophocles,  and  Aristophanes  em- 
body the  genius  of  Greece.  Throughout  Europe  the  influence  was 
felt.  The  peculiar  genius  of  Cervantes  did  not  hinder  him  from 
expressing  the  feeling  which  we  have  designated  as  characteristic 
of  the  time,  only  as  was  natural  from  his  circumstances  with  more 
of  an  apparent  opposition  to  the  older  form  of  thought.  And  he  as 
well  as  Ariosto  and  Tasso  were  able  to  bring  forth  in  their  works 
the  national  spirit  of  their  respective  countries,  just  as  Shakspeare, 
with  all  his  universality,  exhibits  so  strikingly  the  life  and  character 
of  England." 

MAURICE'S  '  Moral  and  Metaphysical  Philosophy.' 

Encyclopaedia  Metropolitana.    Pure  Sciences,  voj.  ii.  p.  650. 

In  this  extract  Mr.  Maurice  views,  as  Dr.  Arnold  does  in  the 
Lecture,  the  Elizabethan  literature  in  its  relation  to  its  own  and  a 
preceding  age,  while  in  the  following  passage  in  Mr.  Keble's  ad- 
mirable Lectures,  he  contemplates  it  in  its  relation  to  a  succeeding 
generation : 

*  *  "  Crediderim  fore  ut  in  singulis  turn  saeculis  turn  regionibus 
germana  Poesis,  tacito  quodam  testimonio,  veram  ac  solidam  Pieta- 
tem  foveat.  Nee  facile  invenias  in  ulla  civitate,  quae  quidem  leges 
moresque  habeat  stabiles,  mutari  in  gravius  et  sanctius  rem  sacram 
et  religiosam,  non  ante  mutato  laudatorum  carminum  tenore.  Ni- 
mirum,  si  ulla  unquam  ex  parte  fuerit  labefactata  religio,  ea  certe 
tenus  erunt  homines  eadem  conditione  qua  patres  nostri  nondum  ad 
DEUM  conversi.  Nihil  ergo  vetat  eos  eadem  ratione  ac  via,  novo 
videlicet  Poetarum  ordine,  sensim  ad  meliora  erigi. 

"  Exempli  gratia,  (ut  in  domesticis  maneam,)  recordamini  paulis- 
per  celeberrimam  scriptorum  familiam,  qui  apud  nos  viguerunt,  Elisa- 


TO    LECTURE    V.  259 

betliae  tempore.  Nonne  ea  fuit  vatum  et  carminum  indoles,  quae 
ipsis,  qui  scribebant,  ignaris,  optime  conveniret  cum  saniore  de  re- 
bus divinis  sententia,  qualis  erat  in  honore  futura,  regnante  Carolo  ? 
Quid  1  Shaksperus  ille  noster,  deliciae  omnium,  maxime  Anglorum 
adolescentium,  nihilne  putandus  est  egisse,  qui  toties  ridicule,  toties 
acriter  invectus  est  in  ilia  praesertim  vitia,  quae  proxima  eetate  illa- 
tura  erant  reipublicse  nostrae  tarn  grave  detrimentum  ?  qui  semper 
frui  videtur  aura  quadam  propria,  et  sibi  quidem  gratissima  quoties 
vapulant  sive  pietatem  simulantes,  sive  regiam  minuentes  majesta- 
tem"?  Quid?  Spenserum  qui  juvenes  assidue  in  manibus  cum 
amore  et  studio  habuerant,  quo  tandem  animo  praelium  erant  inituri 
cum  illo  hoste,  cui  solenne  fuerit  omni  convicio  lacessere  nunc  re- 
gias  fceminas,  nunc  sacrorum  antistites !" 

KEBLE,  ' Pr&lectionesJ  p.  812. 


LECTURE  VI, 


OUR  sketch  of  the  English  part  of  what  I  have  called  the 
religious  movement  of  modern  Europe  has  now  arrived  at  the 
beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century.  And  I  have  said  that 
the  several  parties  as  hitherto  developed  have  been  religious 
rather  than  political,  but  that  they  were  soon  to  become 
political  also.  I  have  used  these  words  "religious"  and 
"  political"  in  their  common  acceptation  for  the  sake  of  con- 
venience ;  but  it  is  quite  necessary  to  observe  the  confusions 
which  attend  this  use  of  them,  as  well  as  of  the  kindred 
words  "church"  and  "state,"  "spiritual"  and  "secular," 
confusions  of  no  slight  importance,  and  perpetually  tending, 
as  I  think,  to  perplex  our  notions  of  the  whole  matter  to 
which  the  words  relate. 

I  have  called  the  puritans  in  the  sixteenth  century  a  reli- 
gious party  rather  than  a  political,  because  it  was  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  church  and  not  of  the  state,  to  use  again  the 
common  language,  which  they  were  attempting  to  alter ;  the 
government  by  bishops,  archdeacons,  &c.,  under  the  royal 
supremacy,  not  the  government  by  king,  lords,  and  commons. 
But  if  we  examine  the  case  a  little  more  closely,  we  shall 
find  that  in  strictness  they  were  a  political  party,  and  that  the 
changes  which  they  wanted  to  introduce  were  political  ; 
political,  it  may  be  said,  even  more  than  religious,  if  we 
apprehend  the  distinction  involved  in  these  words  more  ac- 
curately than  seems  to  be  done  by  the  common  usage  of 
them. 

I  shall  not,  1  trust,  be  suspected  of  wishing  merely  to  bring 


262  LECTURE    VI. 

forward  a  startling  paradox,  when  I  say  that  in  speaking  of 
Christianity  the  word  "  church"  is  rather  to  be  used  as  distinct 
from  religion  than  as  synonymous  with  it,  and  that  it  belongs 
in  great  part  to  another  set  of  ideas,  relating  to  things  which 
we  call  political.  Religion  expresses  the  relations  of  man  to 
God,  setting  aside  our  relations  to  other  men  :  the  church  ex- 
presses our  relations  to  God  in  and  through  our  relations  to  oth- 
er men ;  the  state,  in  popular  language,  expresses  our  relations 
to  other  men  without  reference  to  our  relations  to  God  :  but  I 
have  always  thought  that  this  notion  is  in  fact  atheistic,  and  that 
the  truer  notion  would  be  that  the  state  at  least  expresses  our 
relations  to  other  men  according  to  God's  ordinance,  that  is,  in 
some  degree  including  our  relation  to  God.  However,  without 
insisting  on  this,  we  will  allow  that  the  term  religion  may 
have  a  meaning  without  at  all  considering  our  relations  to 
other  men,  and  that  the  word  state  may  have  a  meaning 
without  at  all  considering  our  relations  to  God  ;  not  its  per- 
fect meaning,  but  a  meaning ;  whereas  the  word  "  church" 
necessarily  comprehends  both  :  we  cannot  attach  any  sense 
to  it  without  conceiving  of  it  as  related  to  God,  and  involving 
also  the  relations  of  men  to  one  another.  It  stands,  therefore, 
according  to  this  view  of  it,  as  the  union  of  the  two  ideas  of 
religion  and  the  state,  comprising  necessarily  in  itself  the  es- 
sential points  of  both  the  others ;  and  as  being  such,  all  church 
questions  may  be  said  to  be  both  religious  and  political  ; 
although  in  some  the  religious  element  may  be  predominant, 
and  in  others  the  political,  almost  to  the  absorption  of  the 
other. 

Now  questions  of  church  government  may  appear  clearly 
to  be  predominantly  political ;  that  is,  as  regarding  the  rela- 
tions of  the  members  of  the  church  to  one  another,  whether 
one  shall  govern  the  rest,  or  the  few  the  many,  or  the  many 
themselves :  and  the  arguments  which  bear  upon  all  these 
points  in  societies  merely  political  might  seem  the  arguments 


LECTURE    VI.  263 

which  should  decide  them  here.  But  two  other  considerations 
are  here  to  be  added ;  one,  that  in  the  opinion  of  many  per- 
sons  of  opposite  parties,  all  such  arguments  are  barred  by 
God's  having  expressly  commanded  a  particular  form  of 
government ;  so  that  instead  of  the  general  question,  what  is 
the  best  form  of  government  under  such  and  such  circum- 
stances, we  have  another,  what  is  the  particular  form  com- 
manded by  God  as  the  best  under  all  circumstances.  This 
is  one  consideration,  and  according  to  this,  it  might  no  doubt 
happen  that  persons  of  the  most  opposite  political  opinions 
might  concur  in  desiring  the  very  same  form  of  church  gov- 
ernment, simply  as  that  which  God  had  commanded.  This 
is  possible,  and  in  individual  cases  I  do  not  doubt  that  it  has 
often  actually  happened.  But  as  the  question,  what  is  the 
particular  form  divinely  commanded,  is  open  to  manifold 
doubts,  to  say  nothing  of  the  farther  question,  "  whether  any 
particular  form  has  been  commanded  or  no ;"  so  practically 
amongst  actual  parties,  men's  opinions  and  feelings,  political 
and  others,  have  really  influenced  them  in  deciding  the  ques- 
tion of  fact,  and  they  have  actually  maintained  one  form  or 
another  to  be  the  form  divinely  commanded,  according  to 
their  firm  belief  of  its  superior  excellence,  or  their  sense  of 
the  actual  evils  of  other  forms,  or  their  instinctive  feeling  in 
favour  of  what  was  established  and  ancient.  And  so  we 
really  should  thus  far  reclaim  questions  on  church  govern- 
ment to  the  dominion  of  political  questions  ;  political  or  moral 
considerations  having  really  for  the  most  part  been  the  springs 
of  the  opinions  of  the  several  parties  respecting  them. 

But  I  said  that  there  were  two  considerations  to  be  added, 
and  I  have  as  yet  only  mentioned  one.  The  other  is  the  be- 
lief entertained  of  the  existence  of  a  priesthood  in  Christianity, 
and  this  priesthood  regulated  by  a  divine  law,  and  attached 
for  ever  to  the  offices  which  exercise  government  also.  And 
this  priesthood  being,  according  to  the  opinion  of  those  who 


264  LECTURE    VI 

believe  in  it,  of  infinite  religious  importance,  the  question  of 
church  government  becomes  in  their  view  much  more  reli- 
gious than  political ;  religious,  not  only  in  this  sense,  that 
church  government,  whether  we  may  think  it  good  or  bad, 
must  be  tried  simply  by  the  matter  of  fact,  whether  it  is  the 
government  ordained  by  God ;  but  in  another  and  stricter 
sense,  that  the  priesthood  implying  also  the  government,  and 
being  necessary  to  every  man's  spiritual  welfare,  not  through 
(he  governing  powers  attached  to  it,  but  in  its  own  direct 
priestly  acts  which  are  quite  distinct  from  government,  church 
government  is  directly  a  matter  of  religious  import,  and  to 
depart  from  what  God  has  ordained  respecting  it  is  not  merely 
a  breach  of  God's  commandments,  but  is  an  actual  cutting 
off  of  that  supply  of  spiritual  strength  by  which  alone  we  can 
be  saved.  So  that  in  this  view  questions  of  church  govern- 
ment, as  involving  more  or  less  the  priesthood  also,  must  be 
predominantly  religious. 

Am  I,  then,  contradicting  myself,  and  were  the  parties  of 
the  sixteenth  century  purely  religious,  as  I  have  called  them 
religious  in  the  popular  sense  of  the  word,  and  not  at  all,  or 
scarcely  at  all  political  ?  I  think  that  the  commonest  reader 
of  English  history  will  feel  that  they  were  political,  and  that 
I  was  right  in  calling  them  so ;  where,  then,  are  we  to  find 
the  solution  of  the  puzzle  ?  In  two  points,  which  I  think  are 
historically  certain :  first,  that  the  controversy  about  episco- 
pacy was  not  held  of  necessity  to  involve  the  question  of  the 
priesthood,  because  the  priestly  character  was  not  thought  to 
be  vested  exclusively  in  bishops,  nor  to  be  communicable 
only  by  them;  so  that  episcopacy  might  be  after  all  a 
point  of  government  and  not  of  priesthood :  and  secondly,  in 
this,  that  the  reformed  churches,  and  the  church  of  England 
no  less  than  the  rest,  laid  no  stress  on  the  notion  of  a  priest- 
hood, and  made  it  no  part  of  their  faith  \  so  that  questions  of 
church  government,  when  debated  between  protestants  and 


LECTURE    VI.  265 

protestants,  were  debated  without  reference  to  it,  and  as 
questions  of  government  only.  Whereas  amongst  Roman 
Catholics,  where  the  belief  in  a  priesthood  is  at  the  bottom  of 
the  whole  system,  questions  of  church  government  have  had 
no  place,  but  the  dispute  has  been  de  sacerdotio  et  imperio, 
respecting  the  limits  of  the  church  and  the  state ;  for  the 
church  being  supposed  identical  with,  or  rather  to  be  merged 
in  the  priesthood,  its  own  government  of  itself  was  fixed  irrev- 
ocably ;  and  the  important  question  was,  how  large  a  portion 
of  human  life  could  be  saved  from  the  grasp  of  this  dominion, 
which  was  supposed  to  be  divine,  and  yet  by  sad  experience 
was  felt  also  to  be  capable  both  of  corruption  and  tyranny. 
So  that  there  was  no  remedy  but  to  separate  the  dominion  of 
the  state  from  that  of  the  church  as  widely  as  possible,  and 
to  establish  a  distinction  between  secular  things  and  spiritual, 
that  so  the  corrupt  church  might  have  only  one  portion  of  the 
man,  and  some  other  power,  not  subject  to  its  control,  might 
have  the  rest. 

Returning,  then,  to  my  original  point,  it  is  still,  I  think, 
true  that  the  parties  of  the  sixteenth  century  in  England 
were  in  great  measure  political ;  inasmuch  as  they  disputed 
about  points  of  church  government,  without  any  reference  to 
a  supposed  priesthood ;  and  because  even  those  who  main- 
tained that  one  or  another  form  was  to  be  preferred,  because 
it  was  of  divine  appointment,  were  influenced  in  their  inter- 
pretation of  the  doubtful  language  of  the  Scriptures  by  their 
own  strong  persuasion  of  what  that  language  could  not  but 
mean  to  say.  But  being  political  even  as  we  have  hitherto 
regarded  them,  the  parties  become  so  in  a  much  higher  de- 
gree when  we  remember  that,  according  to  the  theory  of  the 
English  constitution  in  the  sixteenth  century,  its  church  and 
its  state  were  one. 

Whether  this  identification  be  right  or  wrong,  is  no  part  of 
my  present  business  to  decide  ;  but  .he  fact  is  perfectly  in- 

23 


266  LECTURE    VI. 

disputable.  It  does  not  depend  merely  on  the  language  of 
the  act  which  conferred  the  supremacy  on  Henry  the  Eighth, 
large  and  decisive  as  that  language  is.  (I)  Nor  on  the  large 
powers  and  high  precedence,  ranking  above  all  the  bishops 
and  archbishops,  assigned  to  the  king's  vicegerent  in  matters 
ecclesiastical,  such  vicegerent  being  a  layman.  (2)  Nor 
yet  does  it  rest  solely  on  the  fact  of  Edward  the  Sixth  issuing 
an  office  for  the  celebration  of  the  communion  purely  by  his 
own  authority,  with  the  advice  of  his  uncle  the  protector 
Somerset,  and  others  of  his  privy  council,  without  the  slight- 
est mention  of  any  consent  or  advice  of  any  bishop  or  cler- 
ical person  whatsoever ;  the  king  declaring  in  his  preface? 
that  he  knows  what  by  God's  word  is  meet  to  be  redressed, 
and  that  he  purposes  with  God's  grace  to  do  it.*(3)  But  it  is 
proved  by  this,  that  every  point  in  the  doctrine,  discipline, 
and  ritual  of  our  church,  was  settled  by  the  authority  of  par- 
liament :  the  Act  of  Uniformity  of  the  first,,  of  Elizabeth, 
which  fixed  the  liturgy  and  ordered  its  use  in  all  chnrches, 
being  passed  by  the  queen,  lords  temporal,  and  commons 
only ;  the  bishops  being  Roman  Catholics,  and  of  course  re- 
fusing to  join  in  it ;  so  that  the  very  preamble  of  the  act 
omits  all  mention  of  lords  spiritual,  and  declares  that  it  was 
enacted  by  the  queen,  with  the  advice  and  consent  of  the 
lords  and  commons,  and  by  the  authority  of  the  same.  (4) 
And  it  is  proved  again  by  the  language  of  the  prayer  for  the 
church  militant,  where  the  king's  council  and  his  ministers 
are  undoubtedly  regarded  as  being  officers  in  the  church  by 
virtue  of  their  offices  in  the  state.  (5)  This  being  the  fact, 
recognised  on  all  hands,  church  government  was  no  light 
matter,  but  one  which  essentially  involved  in  it  the  govern- 

*  See  Edward  the  Sixth's  "  Order  of  the  Communion,"  "  imprinted  at  Lon- 
don by  Richard  Grafton,  1547,"  and  reprinted  by  Bishop  Sparrow  in  his  "  Col- 
lection of  Articles,  Injunctions,  Canons,  Orders,"  &c.,  and  again  lately  by 
Dr.  Cardwell,  as  an  Appendix  to  the  Two  Liturgies  of  Edward  the  Sixth.  Ox- 
ford, 1341. 


LECTURE    VI.  267 

ment  of  the  state ;  and  the  disputing  the  queen's  supremacy 
was  equivalent  to  depriving  her  of  one  of  the  most  important 
portions  of  her  sovereignty,  and  committing  half  of  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  nation  to  other  hands.  And  therefore,  when 
James  the  First  used  his  famous  expression  of  "no  bishop, 
no  king,"  (6)  he  spoke  exactly  in  the  spirit  of  the  notion  that 
an  aristocracy  is  a  necessary  condition  of  a  monarchy,  unless 
it  be  a  pure  despotism,  military  or  otherwise;  that  where 
the  people  are  free,  if  they  have  rejected  an  aristocracy, 
they  will  surely  sooner  or  later  reject  a  monarchy  also. 

But  still,  had  Elizabeth's  successor  been  like  herself,  the 
religious  parties  might  have  gone  on  for  a  long  time  without 
giving  to  their  opposition  a  direct  political  form.  Sir  Fran- 
cis Knollys,  writing  to  Lord  Burghley  in  January,  1592, 
(1591,  O.S.,)  wonders  that  the  queen  should  imagine  "that 
she  is  in  as  much  danger  of  such  as  are  called  puritans  as 
she  is  of  the  ists,  and  yet  her  majesty  cannot  be  ignorant 
that  ''  puritans  are  not  able  to  change  the  government  of 
the  clergy,  but  only  by  petition  at  her  majesty's  hands.  And 
yet  her  majesty  cannot  do  it,  but  she  must  call  a  parliament 
for  it ;  and  no  act  can  pass  thereof  unless  her  majesty  shall 
give  her  royal  assent  thereto."*  (7)  This  shows  that  as  yet 
no  notion  was  entertained  of  parliament's  taking  up  the  cause 
of  itself,  and  pressing  it  against  the  crown  ;  and  'Indeed  such 
was  the  mingled  fear  and  love  entertained  for  Elizabeth,  that 
the  mere  notion  of  a  strong  party  in  parliament  setting  itself 
in  opposition  to  her  was  altogether  chimerical.  But  in  the 
mean  time  the  puritan  party  was  gaining  ground  in  the 
country  •  its  supporters  in  parliament  were  continually  be- 
coming more  numerous ;  and  instead  of  the  most  able,  the 
most  respected,  and  the  most  beloved  of  queens,  the  sovereign 
of  England  was  now  James  the  First. 

*  Queen  Elizabeth  and  Her  Times.  Edited  by  T.  Wright,  Trinity  College, 
Cambridge.  London,  1838.  Vol.  ii.  p.  417. 


268  LECTURE    VI. 

At  one  stroke  the  crown  became  placed  in  a  new  position. 
Not  less  averse  to  the  puritans  than  Elizabeth  had  been,  King 
James  met  with  none  of  that  enthusiastic  loyalty  from  the 
mass  of  the  people  which  in  the  late  reign  had  softened  the 
opposition  of  the  puritans,  and  if  it  had  not  softened  it  would 
have  rendered  it  harmless.  He  abandoned  Elizabeth's  fo- 
reign policy,  as  he  was  incapable  of  maintaining  either  the 
dignity  or  the  popularity  of  her  personal  character.  The 
spell  which  had  stayed  the  spirit  of  political  party  was  bro- 
ken, and  the  waters  whose  swelling  had  been  '.eld  back  as  it 
were  by  its  potent  influence,  now  took  their  natural  course, 
and  rose  with  astonishing  rapidity.  (8) 

The  most  disastrous  revolutions  are  produced  by  the  ex- 
treme  of  physical  want ;  the  most  happy,  by  wants  of  a  moral 
kind,  physical  want  being  absent.  There  are  many  reasons 
why  this  should  be  so :  and  this  amongst  others,  that  extreme 
physical  want  is  unnatural :  it  is  a  disease  which  cannot  be 
shaken  off  without  a  violent  and  convulsive  struggle.  But 
moral  and  intellectual  cravings  are  but  a  healthful  symptom 
of  vigorous  life :  before  they  were  felt,  no  wrong  was  done 
in  withholding  their  appointed  food,  and  if  it  be  given  them 
when  they  demand  it,  all  goes  on  naturally  and  happily. 
Nay,  even  where  it  is  refused,  and  a  struggle  is  the  conse- 
quence, still  the  struggle  is  marked  with  much  less  of  bitter- 
ness,  for  men  contending  for  political  rights  are  not  infuriated 
like  those  who  are  fighting  for  bread.  Now  at  the  beginning 
;>f  the  seventeenth  century  the  craving  for  a  more  active 
share  in  the  management  of  their  own  concerns  was  felt  by 
a  large  portion  of  the  English  people.  It  had  been  suspended 
in  Elizabeth's  reign  owing  to  the  general  respect  for  her 
government,  and  the  growing  activity  of  the  nation  found  its 
employment  in  war,  or  in  trade,  or  in  writing ;  for  the  mass 
of  writers  in  Elizabeth's  time  was  enormous.  (9)  But  when 
the  government  excited  no  respect,  then  the  nation  began  to 


LECTURE    VI.  269 

question  with  itself,  why  in  the  conduct  of  its  affairs  such  a 
government  should  be  so  much  and  itself  so  little. 

No  imaginary  constitution  floated  before  the  eyes  of  the 
popular  party  in  parliament,  as  the  object  towards  which  all 
their  efforts  should  be  directed.  Their  feeling  was  indistinct, 
but  yet  they  seem  to  have  acted  on  a  consciousness  that  the 
time  was  come  when  in  the  government  of  the  country  the 
influence  of  the  crown  should  be  less,  and  that  of  the  nation 
more.  It  appears  to  me  that  the  particular  matters  of  dispute 
were  altogether  subordinate  ;  the  puritan  members  of  parlia- 
ment pressed  for  the  reform  of  the  church ;  men  who  were 
keenly  alive  to  the  value  of  personal  freedom,  attacked  arbi- 
trary courts  of  justice,  and  the  power  of  arbitrary  imprison- 
ment ;  those  who  cared  for  little  else,  were  at  least  anxious 
to  keep  in  their  own  hands  the  control  over  their  own  money. 
But  in  all  the  impulse  was  the  same,  to  make  the  house  of 
commons  a  reality.  Created  in  the  midst  of  regal  and  aris- 
tocratical  oppression,  and  wonderfully  preserved  during  the 
despotism  of  the  Tudor  princes  with  all  its  powers  unimpaired 
because  it  had  not  attempted  to  exercise  them  unseasonably ; 
an  undoubted  branch  of  the  legislature, — the  sole  controller 
by  law  of  the  public  taxation, — authorized  even  in  its  feeblest 
infancy  to  petition  for  the  redress  of  national  grievances  and 
to  impeach  public  delinquents  in  the  name  of  the  "  Commons 
of  England," — recognised  as  speaking  with  the  voice  of  the 
nation  when  the  nation  could  do  no  more  than  petition  and 
complain,  the  house  of  commons  spoke  that  same  voice  no  less 
now,  when  the  nation  was  grown  up  to  manhood,  and  had  the 
power  to  demand  and  to  punish.  (10) 

The  greater  or  less  importance  of  a  representative  assem- 
bly is  like  the  quicksilver  in  a  barometer ;  it  rises  or  falls 
according  to  causes  external  to  itself;  and  is  but  an  index 
exhibited  in  a  palpable  form,  of  the  more  or  less  powerful 
pressure  of  the  popular  atmosphere.  When  the  people  at 

23* 


270  LECTURE    VI. 

large  are  poor,  depressed,  and  inactive,  then  their  represen. 
tatives  faithfully  express  their  weakness  ;  nothing  is  so  help- 
less  as  a  house  of  commons,  or  a  chamber  of  deputies,  when 
their  constituents  are  indifferent  to  or  unable  to  support  their 
efforts.  But  under  opposite  circumstances  an  opposite  result 
is  inevitable ;  where  the  people  are  vigorous,  powerful,  and 
determined,  their  representatives,  so  long  as  they  are  believed 
to  represent  them  faithfully,  cannot  but  wield  a  predominant 
influence.  Naturally  then  and  unavoidably  did  the  power 
of  the  house  of  commons  grow  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
because,  as  I  have  said,  they  spoke  the  voice  of  the  nation, 
and  the  nation  was  now  become  strong. 

Under  these  circumstances  there  were  now  working  to- 
gether in  the  same  party  many  principles  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  are  sometimes  perfectly  distinct.  For  instance  the 
oopular  principle,  that  the  influence  of  many  should  not  be 
overborne  by  that  of  one,  was  working  side  by  side  with  the 
principle  of  movement,  or  the  desire  of  carrying  on  the  work 
of  the  Reformation  to  the  farthest  possible  point,  and  not  only 
the  desire  of  completing  the  Reformation,  but  that  of  shaking 
off  the  manifold  evils  of  the  existing  state  of  things  both  po- 
litical and  moral.  Yet  it  is  remarkable  that  the  spirit  of 
intellectual  movement  stood  as  it  were  hesitating  which  party 
it  ought  to  join  :  and  as  the  contest  went  on,  it  seemed  rather 
to  incline  to  that  party  which  was  most  opposed  to  the  politi- 
cal movement.  This  is  a  point  in  the  state  of  English  party 
in  the  seventeenth  century  which  is  well  worth  noticing,  and 
we  must  endeavour  to  comprehend  it. 

We  might  think,  a  priori,  that  the  spirit  of  political,  and 
that  of  intellectual,  and  that  of  religious  movement,  would  go 
on  together,  each  favouring  and  encouraging  the  other.  But 
the  spirit  of  intellectual  movement  differs  from  the  other  two 
in  this,  that  it  is  comparatively  one  with  which  the  mass  of 
mankind  have  little  sympathy.  Political  benefits  all  men 


LECTURE    VI.  271 

can  appreciate  ;  and  all  good  men,  and  a  great  many  more 
than  we  might  well  dare  to  call  good,  can  appreciate  also 
the  value  not  of  all,  but  of  some  religious  truth  which  to 
them  may  seem  all :  the  way  to  obtain  God's  favour  and  to 
worship  Him  aright,  is  a  thing  which  great  bodies  of  men 
can  value,  and  be  moved  to  the  most  determined  efforts,  if 
they  fancy  that  they  are  hindered  from  attaining  to  it.  But 
intellectual  movement  in  itself  is  a  thing  which  few  care  for. 
Political  truth  may  be  dear  to  them,  so  far  as  it  affects  their 
common  well-being ;  and  religious  truth  so  far  as  they  may 
think  it  their  duty  to  learn  it ;  but  truth  abstractedly,  and 
because  it  is  truth,  which  is  the  object,  I  suppose,  of  the  pure 
intellect,  is  to  the  mass  of  mankind  a  thing  indifferent.  Thus 
the  workings  of  the  intellect  come  even  to  be  regarded  with 
suspicion  as  unsettling:  We  have  got,  we  say,  what  we 
want,  and  we  are  well  contented  with  it ;  why  should  we  be 
kept  in  perpetual  restlessness,  because  you  are  searching 
after  some  new  truths,  which  when  found  will  compel  us  to 
derange  the  state  of  our  minds  in  order  to  n?ake  room  for 
them.  Thus  the  democracy  of  Athens  was  afraid  of  and 
hated  Socrates  (11)  ;  and  the  poet  who  satirized  Cleon,  knew 
that  Cleon's  partisans  no  less  than  his  own  aristocratical 
friends  would  sympathize  with  his  satire,  when  directed 
against  the  philosophers.  But  if  this  hold  in  political  mat- 
ters, much  more  does  it  hold  religiously.  The  two  great 
parties  of  the  Christian  world  have  each  their  own  standard 
of  truth  by  which  they  try  all  things :  Scripture  on  the  one 
hand,  the  voice  of  the  church  on  the  other.  To  both  there- 
fore the  pure  intellectual  movement  is  not  only  unwelcome, 
but  they  dislike  it.  It  will  question  what  they  will  not  allow 
to  be  questioned  ;  it  may  arrive  at  conclusions  which  they 
would  regard  as  impious.  And  therefore  in  an  age  of  re- 
ligious movement  particularly,  the  spirit  of  intellectual  move, 
meat  f,*x>n  finds  itself  proscribed  rather  than  countenanced. 


272  LECTURE    VI. 

But  still  there  remains  the  question  why  it  sipuld  have 
shrunk  from  the  religious  party  which  was  aiming  at  reform 
rather  than  from  that  which  was  opposed  to  it.  And  the  ex- 
planation appears  to  be  this.  The  Reforming  party  held  up 
Scripture  in  all  things  as  their  standard,  and  Scripture  ac- 
cording to  its  most  obvious  interpretation.  Thus  in  matters 
of  practice,  such  as  church  government,  ceremonial,  &c., 
they  allowed  of  no  liberty ;  Scripture  was  to  be  the  rule 
positively  and  negatively ;  what  was  found  in  it  was  com- 
manded ;  what  it  did  not  command  was  unlawful.  Again, 
in  matters  of  faith,  what  the  Scripture  taught  was  to  be  be- 
lieved :  believed  actively,  not  submissively  accepted.  I  in- 
stance  the  most  startling  points  of  Calvinism  as  an  example 
of  this.  And  this  party  knew  no  distinction  of  learned  or  un- 
learned, of  priest  or  layman,  of  those  who  were  to  know  the 
mysteries  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  of  those  who  were  to 
receive  the  book  sealed  up,  and  believe  that  its  contents  were 
holy,  because  their  teachers  told  them  so.  All  having  the 
full  Christian  privileges,  all  had  alike  the  full  Christian  re- 
sponsibilities. I  have  known  a  man  of  science,  a  Roman 
Catholic,  express  the  most  intolerant  opinions  as  to  dissenters 
from  the  Romish  communion,  and  yet  when  pressed  on  the 
subject,  declare  that  his  business  was  science,  and  that  he 
knew  nothing  about  theology.  But  the  religious  reforming 
party  of  the  seventeenth  century  would  allow  their  men  of 
science  no  such  shelter  as  this.  They  were  members  of 
Christ's  church,  and  must  know  and  believe  Christ's  truth 
for  themselves,  and  not  by  proxy.  With  such  a  party,  then, 
considering  that  the  truth  for  which  they  demanded  such  im. 
plicit  faith,  was  their  own  interpretation  of  Scripture,  formed 
on  no  very  enlarged  principles,  the  intellectual  inquirer,  who 
demanded  a  large  liberty  of  thought,  and  to  believe  only 
what  he  could  reasonably  accept  as  true,  could  entertain  no 
sympathy. 


LECTURE    VI.  273 

But  with  the  party  opposed  to  them  it  was  different.  To 
a  man  not  in  earnest  the  principle  of  church  authority  is  a 
very  endurable  shackle.  He  does  homage  to  it  once  for  all, 
and  is  then  free.  In  matters  of  church  government,  however, 
men  in  earnest  no  less  than  men  not  in  earnest  found  that, 
intellectually  speaking,  the  antipopular  party  dealt  more 
gently  with  them  than  the  puritans.  For  Hooker's  principle 
being  adopted,  that  the  church  had  great  liberty  in  its  choice 
of  a  government,  as  well  as  of  its  ceremonial,  the  existing 
church  government  and  ritual  rested  its  claim  not  on  its  being 
essential  always,  and  divinely  commanded,  but  on  being 
established  by  lawful  authority.  On  this  principle  any  man 
might  obey  it,  without  being  at  all  obliged  to  maintain  its  in- 
herent excellence  :  his  conformity  did  not  touch  his  intellec- 
tual freedom.  With  respect  to  doctrines,  even  to  the  honest 
and  earnest  believer  there  was  in  many  points  also  allowed 
a  greater  liberty.  Where  the  church  did  not  pronounce 
authoritatively,  the  interpretation  of  Scripture  was  left  free : 
and  the  obvious  sense  was  not  imposed  upon  men's  belief  as 
the  true  one.  Thus  the  peculiar  points  of  Calvinism  were 
rejected  by  the  antipopular  party,  the  more  readily  no  doubt 
because  Calvin  had  taught  them,  but  also  by  many  because 
of  their  own  startling  character.  But  where  there  was  an 
indifference  to  religious  truth  altogether,  there  the  principle 
of  church  authority,  and  the  strong  distinctions  drawn  between 
the  knowledge  required  of  the  clergy,  and  that  necessary  for 
the  laity,  offered  a  most  convenient  refuge.  It  cost  such  a 
man  little  not  to  attack  opinions  about  which  he  cared  noth- 
ing ;  it  cost  him  little  to  say  that  he  submitted  dutifully  to 
the  authority  of  the  church,  being  himself  very  ignorant  of 
such  matters,  and  unable  to  argue  about  them.  His  igno- 
rance was  really  unbelief:  but  his  profession  of  submission 
allowed  him  to  inquire  freely  on  other  matters  which  he 
did  care  for,  and  there  to  assert  principles  which,  if  consis- 


274  LECTURE    VI. 

tently  applied,  might  shake  what  the  church  most  maintained. 
But  he  would  not  make  the  application,  and  like  the  Jesuit 
editors  of  Newton,  he  was  ready  if  questioned  to  disclaim 
it.  (12) 

Thus  up  to  the  breaking  out  of  the  civil  war  in  1642,  we 
find  some  of  the  most  inquiring  and  purely  intellectual  men 
of  the  age,  such  as  Hales  and  Chillingworth,  strongly  at- 
tached to  the  antipopular  party.  And  it  was  his  «xtreme 
shrinking  from  what  he  considered  the  narrow-mindedness 
of  the  puritans,  which  principally,  I  think,  influenced  the 
mind  of  Lord  Falkland  in  joining  at  last  the  antipopular 
cause  as  the  least  evil  of  the  two.  But  as  the  civil  war 
went  on,  the  popular  party  underwent  a  great  change  ;  a 
change  which  prepared  the  way  for  the  totally  new  form  in 
which  it  appeared  in  Europe  in  that  second  period  of  modern 
history  which  I  have  called  the  period  of  the  political  move- 
ment. 

Before,  however,  we  trace  this  change,  let  us  consider 
generally  the  progress  of  the  struggle  in  the  first  forty  years 
of  the  seventeenth  century.  What  strikes  us  predominantly 
is,  that  what  in  Elizabeth's  time  was  a  controversy  between 
divines,  was  now  a  great  political  contest  between  the  crown 
and  the  parliament.  I  have  already  observed  that  the  grow- 
ing vigour  of  the  nation  necessarily  gave  a  corresponding 
vigour  to  the  parliament :  its  greater  ascendency  was  in  the 
course  of  things  natural.  And  although  the  nation  was  grow- 
ing throughout  the  forty  years  and  more  of  Elizabeth's  reign; 
yet  of  course  the  period  of  its  after  growth  produced  much 
greater  results  :  the  infant  grows  into  the  boy  in  his  first  ten 
years  of  life ;  but  it  is  in  the  second  ten  years,  from  ten  to 
twenty,  that  he  grows  up  into  the  freedom  of  manhood.  But 
yet  it  cannot  be  denied  that  had  Elizabeth  reigned  from  1603 
to  1642,  the  complexion  of  events  would  have  been  greatly 
different.  A  great  sovereign  might  have  either  headed  the 


LECTURE    VI.  275 

movement  or  diverted  it.  For  instance,  a  sovereign  who  ob- 
serving the  strength  of  the  national  feeling  in  favour  of  tho 
protestant  Reformation  had  entered  frankly  and  vigorously 
into  the  great  continental  struggle ;  had  supported  on  princi- 
ple that  cause  which  Richelieu  aided  purely  from  worldly 
policy ;  had  struck  to  the  heart  of  Spain  by  a  sustained  naval 
war,  and  by  letting  loose  Raleigh  and  other  such  companions 
or  followers  of  Drake  and  Frobisher  upon  her  American  col* 
onies ;  while  he  had  combated  the  Austrian  power  front  to 
front  in  Germany,  and  formed  an  army  like  Cromwell's  in 
foreign  rather  than  in  domestic  warfare,  such  a  king  would 
have  met  with  no  opposition  on  the  score  of  subsidies  ;  his 
faithful  commons  would  have  supported  him  as  liberally  and 
heartily  as  their  fathers  had  supported  Henry  the  Fifth's 
quarrel  with  France,  or  as  their  posterity  supported  the  tri- 
umphant administration  of  the  first  William  Pitt.  And  puri- 
tan plans  of  church  reform  would  have  been  cast  aside 
unheeded :  the  star-chamber  would  have  remained  unas- 
sailed,  because  it  would  have  found  no  victims,  or  none  whom 
the  public  mind  would  have  cared  for ;  and  Hampden  instead 
of  resisting  the  tax  of  ship-money,  would,  like  the  Roman 
senators  of  old,  have  rather  built  and  manned  a  ship  at  his 
own  single  cost ;  and  commanding  it  in  person  for  the  cause 
of  God  and  the  glory  of  England,  might  have  died  like  NeU 
son  after  completing  the  destruction  of  the  Spanish  navy, 
instead  of  perishing  almost  in  his  own  native  county,  at  that 
sad  skirmish  of  Chalgrave  field. 

This  might  have  been,  had  James  the  First  been  the  very 
reverse  of  what  he  was ;  and  then  the  contest  would  have 
been  delayed  to  a  later  period,  and  have  taken  place  under 
other  circumstances.  For  sooner  or  later  it  could  not  but 
come,  and  the  first  long  peace  under  a  weak  monarch  would 
have  led  to  it.  For  the  supposed  long  course  of  foreign  wars 
would  have  caused  parliaments  to  have  been  continually 


276  LECTURE   VI. 

summoned,  so  that  it  would  not  have  been  possible  aften*  arda 
to  have  discontinued  them  ;  and  whenever  the  parliament 
and  a  weak  king  had  found  themselves  in  presence  of  each 
other,  with  no  foreign  war  to  engage  them,  the  collision  was 
inevitable.  We  have  rather  therefore  reason  to  be  thankfu- 
that  the  struggle  did  take  place  actually,  when  no  long  war 
had  brought  distress  upon  the  whole  nation,  and  embittered 
men's  minds  with  what  Thucydides*  calls  its  rude  and  vio- 
lent teaching  (13)  ;  but  in  a  time  of  peace  and  general  pros- 
perity, when  our  social  state  was  so  healthy  that  the  extreme 
of  political  commotion  did  not  seriously  affect  it;  so  that  al- 
though a  three  or  four  years'  civil  war  cannot  but  be  a  great 
calamity,  yet  never  was  there  any  similar  struggle  marked 
with  so  little  misery,  and  stained  with  so  few  crimes,  as  the 
great  English  civil  war  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

Meantime,  as  I  said,  the  character  of  the  popular  party 
underwent  a  change.  For  as  the  struggle  became  fiercer, 
and  more  predominantly  political,  and  bold  and  active  men 
were  called  forward  from  all  ranks  of  society,  it  was  impos- 
sible that  the  puritan  form  of  church  government,  or  their 
system  of  Scripture  interpretation,  should  be  agreeable  to  all 
the  popular  party.  Some  broke  off  therefore  in  one  direc- 
tion, others  in  another.  In  times  when  the  masses  were  no 
longer  inert,  but  individual  character  was  everywhere  mani- 
festing itself,  no  system  of  centralization,  whether  in  the 
hands  of  bishops  or  presbyters,  was  likely  to  be  acceptable. 
Centralization  and  active  life  pervading  the  whole  body  are 
hard  to  reconcile :  he  who  should  do  this  perfectly,  would 
have  established  a  perfect  government.  For  "  quot  homines 
tot  sententise"  holds  good  only  where  there  is  any  thinking  at 
all :  otherwise  there  may  be  a  hundred  millions  of  men  and 
only  "  una  sententia,"  if  the  minds  of  the  99,999,999  are 

*  III  82. 


LECTURE    VI.  277 

wholly  quiescent.  And  thus  the  Independent  principle  arose 
naturally  out  of  the  high  excitement  on  religious  questions 
which  prevailed  throughout  the  nation  ;  just  as  the  multitude 
of  little  commonwealths  in  Greece,  and  in  Italy  in  the  middle 
ages,  showed  the  stirring  of  political  life  in  those  countries. 
Each  congregation  was  independent  of  other  congregations ; 
each  individual  in  the  congregation,  according  to  his  gifts  real 
or  fancied,  might  pray,  exhort,  and  interpret  Scripture.  Men 
so  resolute  in  asserting  the  rights  of  the  small  society  against 
the  larger,  and  of  the  individual  against  the  society,  could  not 
but  recognise,  I  do  not  say  the  duty,  so  much  as  the  necessity 
of  toleration  ;  and  thus  the  independents  showed  more  mutual 
indulgence  in  this  matter  than  any  religious  party  had  as  yet 
shown  in  England.  But  such  a  system,  to  say  nothing  of  its 
other  defects,  had  in  it  no  principle  of  duration ;  for  it  seems  a 
law  that  life  cannot  long  go  on  in  a  multitude  of  minute  parts 
without  union,  nay  even  without  something  of  that  very  cen- 
tralization which  yet  if  not  well  watched  is  so  apt  to  destroy 
them  by  absorbing  their  life  into  its  own  :  there  wants  a  heart 
in  the  political  as  in  the  natural  body,  to  supply  the  extremi- 
ties continually  with  fresh  blood. 

But  I  said  that  the  popular  party  broke  off  from  puritan- 
ism  partly  in  one  direction  and  partly  in  another.  Some 
there  were  who  set  the  religious  part  of  the  contest  aside  al- 
together; esteeming  the  disputes  about  church  government 
of  no  account,  holding  all  the  religious  parties  alike  in  equal 
N^^  contempt,  as  equally  narrow-minded  in  their  different  ways. 
Tfi&  good  government  of  the  commonwealth  was  their  main 
object,  with  a  pure  system  of  divine  philosophy.  The  eyes 
of  such  men  were  turned  rather  to  Greece  and  Rome  than 
to  any  nearer  model ;  there  alone,  as  they  fancied,  was  to  be 
found  the  freedom  which  they  desired.  Others,  who  were 
incapable  of  any  romantic  or  philosophical  aspirations,  desired 
simply  such  objects  as  have  been  expressed,  in  later  times, 

24 


278  LECTURE    VI. 

under  the  terms  civil  and  religious  liberty ;  they  deprecated 
unjust  restraint,  whether  external  or  internal ;  but  with  this 
negation  their  zeal  seemed  to  rest  contented.  A  great  and 
fatal  error,  and  which  has  done  more  than  any  thing  else  to 
make  good  men  in  later  times  stand  aloof  from  the  popular 
cause.  For  liberty,  though  an  essential  condition  of  all  our 
excellence,  is  yet  valuable  because  it  is  such  a  condition :  I 
may  say  of  it  what  I  have  said  of  actual  existence,  that  the 
question  may  always  be  asked  why  we  are  free,  and  if  the 
answer  is,  that  we  may  do  nothing,  or  that  we  may  please 
ourselves,  then  liberty,  so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  is  value- 
less :  its  good  is  this  only,  that  it  takes  away  from  another 
the  guilt  of  injustice.  But  to  speak  of  religious  liberty,  when 
we  mean  the  liberty  to  be  irreligious,  or  of  freedom  of  con- 
science, when  our  only  conscience  is  our  convenience,  is  no 
other  than  a  mockery  and  a  profanation.  It  is  by  following 
such  principles  that  a  popular  party  justly  incurs  that  re- 
proach of  dxoXatfj'a,  which  the  ancient  philosophers  bestowed 
especially  on  democracies.  (14) 

I  have  tried  to  analyze  the  popular  party :  I  must  now  en- 
deavour to  do  the  same  with  the  party  opposed  to  it.  Of 
course  an  antipopular  party  varies  exceedingly  at  different 
times ;  when  it  is  in  the  ascendant  its  vilest  elements  are 
sure  to  be  uppermost :  fair  and  moderate  men, — just  men, 
wise  men,  noble-minded  men, — then  refuse  to  take  part  with 
it.  But  when  it  is  humbled,  and  the  opposite  side  begins  to 
imitate  its  practices,  then  again  many  of  the  best  and  noblest 
spirits  return  to  it,  and  share  its  defeat  though  they  abhorred 
its  victory.  We  must  distinguish,  therefore,  very  widely  be- 
tween the  antipopular  party  in  1640,  before  the  Long  Parlia- 
ment met,  and  the  same  party  a  few  years,  or  even  a  few 
months  afterwards.  Now  taking  the  best  specimens  of  this 
party  in  its  best  state,  we  can  scarcely  admire  them  too 
highly.  A  man  who  leaves  the  popular  cause  when  it  is  tri- 


LECTURE    VI.  279 

umphant,  and  joins  the  party  opposed  to  it,  without  really 
changing  his  principles  and  becoming  a  renegade,  is  one  of 
the  noblest  characters  in  history.  He  may  not  have  the 
clearest  judgment  or  the  firmest  wisdom ;  he  may  have  been 
mistaken ;  but  as  far  as  he  is  concerned  personally,  we  can- 
not but  admire  him.  But  such  a  man  changes  his  party  not 
to  conquer,  but  to  die.  He  does  not  allow  the  caresses  of  his 
new  friends  to  make  him  forget  that  he  is  a  sojourner  with 
them,  and  not  a  citizen :  his  old  friends  may  have  used  him 
ill ;  they  may  be  dealing  unjustly  and  cruelly ;  still  their 
faults,  though  they  may  have  driven  him  into  exile,  cannot 
banish  from  his  mind  the  consciousness  that  with  them  is  his 
true  home  ;  that  their  cause  is  habitually  just,  and  habitually 
the  weaker,  although  now  bewildered  and  led  astray  by  an 
unwonted  gleam  of  success.  He  protests  so  strongly  against 
their  evil  that  he  chooses  to  die  by  their  hands  rather  than  in 
their  company ;  but  die  he  must,  for  there  is  no  place  left  on 
earth  where  his  sympathies  can  breathe  freely  ;  he  is  obliged 
to  leave  the  country  of  his  affections,  and  life  elsewhere  is 
intolerable.  This  man  is  no  renegade,  no  apostate,  but  the 
purest  of  martyrs ;  for  what  testimony  to  truth  can  be  so 
pure  as  that  which  is  given  uncheered  by  any  sympathy ; 
given  not  against  enemies  amidst  applauding  friends,  but 
against  friends  amidst  unpitying  or  half-rejoicing  enemies. 
And  such  a  martyr  was  Falkland  !  (15) 

Others  who  fall  off  from  a  popular  party  in  its  triumph, 
are  of  a  different  character ;  ambitious  men,  who  think  that 
they  are  become  necessary  to  their  opponents,  and  who  crave 
the  glory  of  being  able  to  undo  their  own  work  as  easily  as 
they  had  done  it :  passionate  men,  who,  quarrelling  with  their 
old  associates  on  some  personal  question,  join  the  adversary 
in  search  of  revenge  :  vain  men,  who  think  their  place  une. 
qual  to  their  merits,  and  hope  to  gain  a  higher  on  the  oppo- 
site side  :  timid  men,  who  are  frightened  as  it  were  at  the 


280  LECTURE    VI. 

noise  of  their  own  guns,  and  the  stir  of  actual  battle ;  who 
had  liked  to  dally  with  popular  principles  in  the  parade  ser- 
vice of  debating  or  writing  in  quiet  times,  but  who  shrink 
alarmed  when  both  sides  are  become  thoroughly  in  earnest : 
and  again,  quiet  and  honest  men,  who  never  having  fully 
comprehended  the  general  principles  at  issue,  and  judging 
only  by  what  they  see  before  them,  are  shocked  at  the  vio- 
lence of  their  party,  and  think  that  the  opposite  party  is  now 
become  innocent  and  just,  because  it  is  now  suffering  wrong 
rather  than  doing  it.  Lastly,  men  who  rightly  understand 
that  good  government  is  the  result  of  popular  and  antipopulai 
principles  blended  together,  rather  than  of  the  mere  ascend- 
ancy  of  either ;  whose  aim,  therefore,  is  to  prevent  eithei 
from  going  too  far,  and  to  throw  their  weight  into  the  lightei 
scale :  wise  men  and  most  useful,  up  to  the  moment  when 
the  two  parties  are  engaged  in  actual  civil  war,  and  the 
question  is,  which  shall  conquer.  For  no  man  can  pretend 
to  limit  the  success  of  a  party,  when  the  sword  is  the  arbi- 
trator ;  he  who  wins  in  that  game  does  not  win  by  halves : 
and  therefore  the  only  question  then  is,  which  party  is  on  the 
whole  the  best,  or  rather,  perhaps,  the  least  evil ;  for  as  one 
must  crush  the  other,  it  is  at  least  desirable  that  the  party  so 
crushed  should  be  the  worse. 

Again,  of  the  supporters  of  an  antipopular  party  in  its  or- 
dinary state,  before  it  has  received  accessions  from  its  oppo- 
site, there  is  also  a  considerable  variety.  Walton,*  when 
describing  the  three  parties  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  speaks 
of  them  as  "  the  active  Romanists,"  "  the  restless  non-con- 
formists," and  "the  passive  and  peaceable  Protestants.3' 
This  virtue  of  quietness,  meekness,  and  peaceableness,  the 
dtf^ay/jootfovT)  of  the  Athenians,  has  been  ascribed  to  Wal- 
ton himself,  and  is  often  claimed  as  the  characteristic  ex- 
cellence of  an  antipopular  party,  and  particularly  of  the 

*  Life  of  Hooker. 


LECTURE    VI.  281 

antipopular  party  of  our  English  contests  of  the  seventeentti 
century.  Now  it  may  be,  though  I  do  not  think  that  it  is 
made  out  clearly,  that  there  existed  at  Athens  a  state  of 
things  so  feverish — that  a  town  life,  surrounded  by  such 
manifold  excitements  as  was  that  of  the  Athenians,  had  so 
overpowered  the  taste  for  quiet,  that  the  d^a^/xwv  ,  or  the 
man  who  followed  only  his  own  domestic  concerns,  was  a 
healthy  rarity.  (16)  But  in  general,  and  most  certainly  with 
our  country  life,  and  our  English  constitutions,  partaking 
something  of  the  coldness  of  our  northern  climate,  it  is  extra- 
ordinary  that  any  should  have  regarded  this  atf^a^fAorfuvii 
as  a  rare  virtue,  and  praised  the  meekness  of  those  who,  be- 
ing themselves  well  off,  and  having  all  their  own  desires  con- 
tented, do  not  trouble  themselves  about  the  evils  which  they 
do  not  feel ;  and  complain  of  the  noisy  restlessness  of  the 
beggars  in  the  street,  while  they  are  sitting  at  their  ease  in 
their  warm  and  comfortable  rooms.  Isaac  Walton  might  en- 
joy his  angling  undisturbed  in  spite  of  star-chamber,  ship- 
money,  high-commission  court,  or  popish  ceremonies ;  what 
was  the  sacrifice  to  him  of  letting  the  public  grievances  take 
their  own  way,  and  enjoying  the  freshness  of  a  May  morning 
in  the  meadows  on  the  banks  of  the  Lea  ?  Show  me  a  pop- 
ulation painfully  struggling  for  existence,  toiling  hard  and 
scarcely  able  to  obtain  necessary  food,  and  seeing  others 
around  them  in  the  enjoyment  of  every  luxury,  and  this  pop- 
ulation repelling  all  agitation,  and  going  on  peaceably  and 
patiently  under  a  system  in  which  they  and  they  alone  are 
suffering ;  and  I  will  yield  to  no  man  in  my  admiration,  in 
.  my  deep  reverence  for  such  quietness,  or  rather  for  such 
true  meekness,  such  self-denying  resignation.  For  there  is 
not  a  living  man  on  whom  hunger  and  cold  do  not  press 
heavily,  if  he  has  to  bear  them ;  and  he  who  endures  these 
is  truly  patient.  But  are  all  men  keenly  alive  to  religious 
error?  to  political  abuses  which  do  not  touch  them?  to  in* 

24* 


282  LECTURE    VI. 

justice  from  which  others  only  are  the  sufferers  ?  Or  are 
our  English  minds  so  enthusiastic,  that  our  most  dangerous 
tendency  is  to  forget  our  own  private  and  personal  concerns, 
to  crave  after  abstract  changes  in  church  and  state,  and  to 
rail  against  existing  institutions  with  the  certainty  of  meeting 
as  our  reward  poverty  and  a  jail  ?  Generally,  then,  there 
is  no  merit  in  the  acquiescence  in  existing  things  shown  by 
the  mass  of  the  population  whose  physical  comforts  are  not 
touched,  nor  their  personal  feelings  insulted.  There  may  be 
individuals,  no  doubt,  whose  submission  is  virtuous ;  men 
who  see  clearly  what  is  evil,  and  desire  to  have  it  redressed, 
but  from  a  mistaken  sense  of  duty,  and  from  that  only,  for- 
bear to  complain  of  it.  But  where  the  evil  is  one  which  the 
mass  care  little  for,  when  to  complain  of  it  is  highly  danger- 
ous, and  there  is  enough  of  work  and  enjoyment  in  their  own 
private  concerns  to  satisfy  all  the  wants  of  their  nature,  I 
know  not  how  the  political  peaceableness  of  such  persons  can 
be  thought  in  itself  to  be  either  admirable  or  amiable.  It 
seems  to  me  to  be  in  itself  neither  admirable  nor  strongly 
blameable  ;  but  simply  the  following  of  a  natural  tendency  ; 
and  of  this  sort  was  the  dislike  of  the  popular  party  enter- 
tained by  the  great  majority  of  their  opponents. 

Others,  however,  there  were  who  were  opposed  to  the  pop- 
ular party,  at  least  so  long  as  it  was  predominantly  religious, 
on  more  positive  and  earnest  grounds.  A  vast  multitude  of 
principles  and  practices  had  been  joined  together  in  the 
Roman  Catholic  system,  not  all  necessarily  connected  with 
each  other.  Of  these,  some  desired  to  restore  all,  some  loved 
peculiarly  those  which  were  most  essential  to  the  system  real- 
ly, though  not  in  the  eyes  of  the  vulgar ;  others  regretted 
only  those  which,  having  no  necessary  connection  with  it, 
were  yet  proscribed  for  its  sake.  To  all  of  these,  and  to 
many  more  besides,  which  the  church  of  England  had  act- 
ually adopted,  the  puritans  professed  the  most  uncompromis< 


LECTURE    VI  283 

ing  hostility.  Not  only,  therefore,  were  all  those  opposed  to 
them  who  thought  that  the  Reformation  had  gone  too  far,  but 
many  of  those  also  who  thought  that  it  had  gone  far  enough, 
and  could  not  bear  to  go  any  farther.  Men  of  taste,  men 
who  loved  antiquity,  men  of  strong  associations  which  they 
felt  almost  sacred,  were  scandalized  at  the  homeliness,  the 
utter  renunciation  of  the  past,  the  rude  snapping  asunder  of 
some  of  the  most  venerable  usages,  which  were  prominent 
parts  of  the  puritan  system.  But  along  with  these  were  oth- 
ers whose  dislike  to  puritanism  went  deeper;  some  who 
dreaded  their  system  of  Scripture  interpretation,  and  the  doc- 
trines which  they  deduced  from  it ;  a  large  party  who  be- 
lieved  the  government  by  bishops  to  be  divinely  commanded, 
as  firmly  as  the  puritans  believed  the  same  of  their  presby- 
teries ;  but  many  also,  and  from  the  beginning  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  onwards  continually  becoming  more  active, 
and  raised  to  higher  dignities,  who  in  their  hearts  hated  the 
Reformation  altogether — hated  especially  the  foreign  protest- 
ants — hated  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith,  loved  cere- 
monies and  rites,  idolized  antiquity,  preached  up  the  priest- 
hood, and,  in  the  words  of  Lord  Falkland,  "laboured  to 
bring  in  an  English  though  not  a  Roman  popery."  "  I 
mean,"  he  goes  on,*  "  not  only  the  outside  and  dress  of  it, 

*  The  Lord  Falkland's  speech,  Feb.  9th,  1641,  O.  S.— (From  Nalson's 
Collections :) 

*  *    *    "  The  truth  is,  Mr.  Speaker,  that  as  some  ill  ministers  in  our  state 
first  took  away  our  money  from  us,  and  afterwards  endeavoured  to  make  our 
money  not  worth  the  taking,  by  turning  it  into  brass  by  a  kind  of  antiphiloso- 
pher's  stone  ;  so  these  men  used  us  in  the  point  of  preaching :  first,  depressing 
it  to  their  power,  and  next  labouring  to  make  it  such,  as  the  harm  had  not 
been  much  if  it  had  been  depressed,  the  most  frequent  subjects  even  in  the 
most  sacred  auditories,  being  the  jus  divinum  of  bishops  and  tithes,  the  sacred- 
ness  of  the  clergy,  the  sacrilege  of  impropriations,  the  demolishing  of  puritan- 
ism  and  propriety,  the  building  of  the  prerogative  at  Paul's,  the  introduction 
of  such  doctrines  as,  admitting  them  true,  the  truth  would  not  recompense  the 
scandal ;  or  of  such  as  were  so  far  false,  that,  as  Sir  Thomas  More  says  of  the 
casuists,  their  business  was  not  to  keep  men  from  sinning,  but  to  inform  them, 


284  LECTURE    VI. 

but  equally  absolute  ;  a  blind  dependence  of  the  people  upon 
the  clergy,  and  of  the  clergy  upon  themselves."  All  these 
several  elements  were  found  mixed  up  together  in  the  anti- 
popular  party  of  the  first  half  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

Let  us  now  pass  abruptly  from  1642  to  1660 ;  when  the 
long  contest  was  ended,  the  old  constitution  restored,  and  the 
first  period,  which  I  have  called  the  period  of  the  religiou; 
movement,  was  brought  to  a  close.  Let  us  consider  what 
the  object  of  the  movement  had  been,  and  what  was  its  suc- 
cess. And  first,  as  religious  parties  only,  we  have  seen  that 
there  had  been  three,  those  who  wished  to  maintain  the  sys- 
tem established  at  the  Reformation,  those  who  wished  to  alter 
it  by  carrying  on  the  Reformation  farther,  and  those  who 
wished  to  undo  it,  and  return  to  the  system  which  it  had 
superseded.  We  have  seen  that  this  last  party  could  not  act 
openly  in  its  own  name,  and  its  own  direct  operations  were 
therefore  inconsiderable :  but  a  portion  of  the  established 
church  party,  in  their  extreme  antipathy  towards  those  who 
called  for  farther  reform,  did  really  labour  in  spirit  to  undo 
what  had  been  effected  already,  serving  the  principles  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  party  if  not  its  forms.  But  the  result  of  the 
contest  was  singularly  favourable  to  the  middle  party,  to  the 

Quam  prope  ad  peccatum  sine  peccato  liceat  accedere ;  so  it  seemed  their 
work  was  to  try  how  much  of  a  papist  might  be  brought  in  without  popery, 
and  to  destroy  as  much  as  they  could  of  the  Gospel,  without  bringing  them- 
selves into  danger  of  being  destroyed  by  the  law.  *  *  Mr.  Speaker,  to  go 
yet  farther,  some  of  them  have  so  industriously  laboured  to  deduce  themselves 
from  Rome,  that  they  have  given  great  suspicion  that  in  gratitude  they  desire 
to  return  thither,  or  at  least  to  meet  it  half  way ;  some  have  evidently  laboured 
to  bring  in  an  English,  though  not  a  Roman  popery :  I  mean  not  only  the  out- 
side and  dress  of  it,  but  equally  absolute ;  a  blind  dependence  of  the  people 
upon  the  clergy,  and  of  the  clergy  upon  themselves  ;  and  have  opposed  the 
papacy  beyond  the  seas  that  they  might  settle  one  beyond  the  water,  [i.  e. 
trans  Thamesin,  at  Lambeth.]  Nay,  common  fame  is  more  than  ordinarily 
false,  if  none  of  them  have  found  a  way  to  reconcile  the  opinions  of  R  ome  to 
the  preferments  of  England ;  and  be  so  absolutely,  directly,  and  cordia.ly  pa- 
pists, that  it  is  all  that  £1500  a  year  can  do  to  keep  them  from  confessing  it." 


LECTURE    VI.  285 

supporters  of  the  Elizabethan  reformation  against  the  Roman 
Catholics  on  one  side,  and  against  the  puritans  on  the  other. 
It  was  decided  that  the  church  of  England  was  to  remain  at 
once  protestant  and  episcopal,  acknowledging  the  royal  su- 
premacy and  retaining  its  hierarchy ;  repelling  alike  Roman- 
ism and  puritanism ;  maintaining  the  reform  already  effected, 
resisting  any  reform  or  change  beyond  it.  This  is  the  first 
and  obvious  impression  which  we  derive  from  the  sight  of  the 
battle-field  when  the  smoke  is  cleared  away ;  all  other  stan- 
dards are  beaten  down,  the  standard  of  the  protestant  and 
episcopal  church  of  England  appears  to  float  alone  trium- 
phant. 

But  on  examining  more  closely  the  state  of  the  conquerors, 
we  find  that  their  victory  has  not  been  cheaply  won ;  that 
they  do  not  leave  the  field  such  as  they  came  upon  it.  And 
this  is  the  important  part  of  the  whole  matter,  that  the  original 
idea  of  the  church  of  England,  as  only  another  name  for  the 
state  and  nation  of  England,  was  now  greatly  obscured,  and 
from  this  time  forward  was  ever  more  and  more  lost  sight  of. 
Change  in  the  government  of  the  church  had  been  success- 
fully resisted;  there  the  puritans  had  done  nothing;  but 
changes  of  the  greatest  importance  had  been  wrought  in  the 
state,  not  in  its  forms  indeed,  for  the  alteration  of  these  had 
been  triumphantly  repealed  by  the  restoration,  but  in  its 
spirit :  the  question  whether  England  was  to  be  a  pure  or 
mixed  monarchy  had  been  decisively  settled ;  the  ascendency 
of  parliament,  which  the  revolution  of  1688  placed  beyond 
dispute,  was  rendered  sure  by  the  events  of  the  preceding 
contest ;  the  bloodless  triumph  of  King  William  was  pur- 
chased in  fact  by  the  blood  shed  in  the  great  civil  war.  It 
was  impossible  then  that  that  absoluteness  of  church  govern, 
ment  which  had  existed  in  the  reigns  of  Elizabeth  and  her 
successors  should  be  any  longer  tolerated ;  no  high-commission 
court  could  be  appointed  now,  nor  would  the  license  of  the 


286  LECTURE    VI. 

crown  be  held  sufficient  to  give  the  clergy  a  legislative  power, 
and  to  enable  them  to  make  canons  for  the  church  at  their 
discretion.  The  canons  of  1640,  passed  by  Laud  in  the 
plenitude  of  his  power,  were  annulled  by  the  parliament  after 
the  Restoration  no  less  than  they  had  been  by  the  Long  Par- 
liament ;  the  writ  De  haeretico  comburendo  was  now  for  the 
first  time  abolished  by  law.  The  old  forms  of  church  gov- 
ernment had  been  maintained  against  all  change,  but  being 
ill  suited  to  the  advance  which  had  been  made  in  the  spirit 
of  the  general  government,  they  were  not  allowed  to  possess 
their  former  activity. 

Whilst  the  identity  of  church  and  state  was  thus  impaired 
on  the  one  hand,  it  was  also  lessened  in  another  way  by  the 
total  defeat  of  the  puritans,  and  by  the  ejection  of  such  a 
multitude  of  their  ministers  by  the  new  oaths  imposed  by  the 
Act  of  Uniformity.  Hitherto  the  puritans  had  been  more  or 
less  a  party  within  the  church ;  the  dispute  had  been  whether 
the  church  itself  should  be  modelled  after  the  puritan  rule  or 
no ;  both  parties  as  yet  supposing  that  there  was  to  be  one 
church  only  as  there  was  one  nation.  But  first  the  growth 
of  independency  during  the  civil  war,  and  now  the  vehement 
repulsion  by  the  church  of  all  puritan  elements  from  its  min- 
istry, made  it  but  too  certain  that  one  church  would  no 
longer  be  coextensive  with  the  nation.  The  old  idea  was 
attempted  to  be  maintained  for  a  while  by  force ;  we  had  the 
Five-Mile  Act  and  the  Conventicle  Act,  (17)  and  such  men 
as  John  Bunyan  and  William  Penn  were  subjected  to  legal 
penalties ;  but  to  maintain  an  idea  which  was  now  contra- 
dicted by  facts,  became  as  impossible  as  it  was  unjust ;  and 
the  Toleration  Act,  recognising  the  legal  existence  of  various 
bodies  of  dissenters  from  the  church,  was  at  least  a  confession 
that  the  great  idea  of  the  English  Reformation  could  not  be 
realized  in  the  actual  state  of  things ;  its  accomplishment 
must  be  reserved  for  happier  and  better  times. 


LECTURE    VI.  287 

The  church,  or  religious  movement,  having  thus  ended 
satisfactorily  to  the  principles  of  neither  party,  the  religious 
elements  on  both  sides  retired  as  it  were  into  the  background, 
and  the  political  elements  were  left  in  the  front  rank  of  the 
battle  alone.  We  cannot  wonder,  therefore,  that  the  next 
great  period  of  movement  should  have  been  predominantly 
political.  The  composition  and  vicissitudes  of  parties  during 
this  second  period  wil*  form  the  subject  of  the  next  lecture. 


NOTES 


TO 


LECTURE    VI 


NOTE  1.—  Page  266. 

course  of  argument  and  historical  reference  in  this  paragraph 
must  be  taken  in  connection  with  Dr.  Arnold's  idea  of  a  Christian 
state — what  may  be  called  his  high-State  theory.  If  on  the  con- 
trary the  reader  should  connect  it  with  the  more  common  opinion 
respecting  the  functions  of  the  State — *  the  low  Jacobinical  notion,' 
as  Arnold  was  in  the  habit  of  stigmatizing  the  Warburtonian  and 
Utilitarian  theory,  that  the  only  object  of  the  State  is  the  conservation 
of  body  and  goods,  he  will  receive  an  impression  from  this  passage 
widely  different  from  the  thoughts  that  were  in  the  mind  of  the 
Lecturer,  and  which  he  would  have  been  the  last  to  sanction.  In 
establishing  the  identification  of  Church  and  State,  according  to  the 
theory  of  the  English  constitution  in  the  sixteenth  century,  Dr.  Ar- 
nold adopts  a  course  of  historical  argument  which  gives  great  prom- 
inence to  the  influence  of  parliamentary  legislation  and  civil  author- 
ity upon  ecclesiastical  affairs, — indeed  this  is  so  strongly  stated  that 
his  real  object  might  be  mistaken  for  an  intention  to  establish  the 
supremacy  of  the  State  over  the  Church, — considered  as  distinct 
and  even  opposite,  and  thus  to  fasten  an  Erastian  character  upon 
the  English  Church.  It  is  however  enough  to  show  that  such  was 
not  the  drift  of  his  reasoning,  to  observe  that  it  would  be  rather  in- 
direct and  indeed  insidious  argumentation,  different  from  the  pur- 
pose he  has  expressed,  and  altogether  at  variance  with  the  upright 
and  candid  habit  of  his  mind.  Dr.  Arnold  was  not  a  man  to  strike 
a  secret  or  even  a  side  blow. 

The  supremacy  of  the  Crown  was,  in  truth,  a  favourite  idea  with 


NOTES    TO    LECTURE    VI.  289 

him,  not,  however,  according  to  the  common  acceptation  of  the 
phrase,  but  because  considering  Church  and  State  to  be  identical, 
and  '  the  Christian  nation  of  England  to  be  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land,' he  therefore  considered  the  '  head  of  that  nation  the  head  of 
the  Church.'  In  one  of  his  letters  (No.  246)  ne  speaks  of  'the 
doctrine  of  the  Crown's  Supremacy  having  been  vouchsafed  to  the 
English  Church  by  a  rare  blessing  of  God,  and  containing  in  itself 
the  true  idea  of  the  Christian  perfect  Church, — the  Kingdom  of 
God.'  In  another  letter  (No.  216)  he  writes  more  at  length : 

"  *  *  I  look  to  the  full  development  of  the  Christian  Church  in 
its  perfect  form,  as  the  Kingdom  of  God,  for  the  most  effective  re- 
moval of  all  evil,  and  promotion  of  all  good  ;  and  I  can  understand 
no  perfect  Church,  or  perfect  State,  without  their  blending  into  one 
in  this  ultimate  form.  I  believe,  farther,  that  our  fathers  at  the 
Reformation  stumbled  accidentally,  or  rather  were  unconsciously 
led  by  God's  Providence,  to  the  declaration  of  the  great  principle 
of  this  system,  the  doctrine  of  the  King's  Supremacy ;  which  is,  in 
fact,  no  other  than  an  assertion  of  the  supremacy  of  the  Church  or 
Christian  society  over  the  clergy,  and  a  denial  of  that  which  I  hold 
to  be  one  of  the  most  mischievous  falsehoods  ever  broached, — that 
the  government  of  the  Christian  Church  is  vested  by  divine  right  in 
the  clergy,  and  that  the  close  corporation  of  bishops  and  presbyters, 
whether  one  or  more  makes  no  difference, — is  and  ever  ought  to  be 
the  representative  of  the  Christian  Church.  Holding  this  doctrine 
as  the  very  corner-stone  of  all  my  political  belief,  I  am  equally  op- 
posed to  Popery,  High  Churchism,  and  the  claims  of  the  Scotch 
Presbyteries  on  the  one  hand ;  and  to  all  the  Independents,  and  ad- 
vocates of  the  separation,  as  they  call  it,  of  Church  and  State  on  the 
other  ;  the  first  setting  up  a  Priesthood  in  the  place  of  the  Church, 
and  the  other  lowering  necessarily  the  objects  of  Law  and  Govern- 
ment, and  reducing  them  to  a  mere  system  of  police,  while  they 
profess  to  wish  to  make  the  Church  purer." 

In  letter  187  he  writes,  "  *  *  I  want  to  know  what  principles  and 
objects  a  Christian  State  can  have,  if  it  be  really  Christian,  more  or 
less  than  those  of  the  Church.  In  whatever  degree  it  differs  from 
the  Church,  it  becomes,  I  think,  in  that  exact  proportion  unchris- 
tian. In  short,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  State  must  be  *  the  world,' 
if  it  be  not  'the  Church;'  but  for  a  society  of  Christians  $o  be 

99 


290  NOTES 

4  the  world'  seems  monstrous.  *  *  Again,  the  ip-yov  of  a  Christi&a 
State  and  Church  is  absolutely  one  and  the  same  :  nor  can  a  differ- 
ence be  made  out  which  shall  not  impair  the  Christian  character  of 
one  or  both  ;  as,  e.g.,  if  the  Ipyov  of  the  State  be  made  to  be  merely 
physical  or  economical  good,  or  that  of  the  Church  be  made  to  be 
the  performing  of  a  ritual  service." — And  in  letter  No.  79  he  states 
his  theory  "  that  the  State,  being  the  only  power  sovereign  over 
human  life,  has  for  its  legitimate  object  the  happiness  of  its  people, 
— their  highest  happiness,  not  physical  only,  but  intellectual  and 
moral ;  in  short,  the  highest  happiness  of  which  it  has  a  concep 
tion." 

Now  it  is  this  conception  which  Dr.  Arnold  had  of  what  he  called 
;the  highest  duty  and  prerogative  of  the  Commonwealth,"  that 
must  be  taken  in  connection  with  the  paragraph  in  the  Lecture. 
The  same  legislation,  in  English  history,  is  also  referred  to  in  one 
of  his  letters,  (No.  84,)  where  he  expresses  the  opinion  that  "  the 
statutes  passed  about  the  Church  in  Henry  the  Eighth's  and  Edward 
the  Sixth's  reigns  are  still  the  opx<"  of  its  constitution,  if  that  may  be 
said  to  have  a  constitution  which  never  was  constituted,  but  was 
left  as  avowedly  unfinished  as  Cologne  Cathedral,  where  they  left 
a  crane  standing  on  one  of  the  half-built  towers.  *hree  hundred 
years  ago,  and  have  renewed  the  crane  from  time  to  time,  as  it 
wore  out,  as  a  sign  not  only  that  the  building  was  incomplete,  but 
that  the  friends  of  the  Church  hoped  to  finish  the  work  whenever 
they  could.  Had  it  been  in  England,  the  crane  would  have  been 
speedily  destroyed,  and  the  friends  of  the  Church  would  have  said 
that  the  Church  was  finished  perfectly  already,  and  that  none  but 
its  enemies  would  dare  to  suggest  that  it  wanted  any  thing  to  com- 
plete its  symmetry  and  usefulness." 

Entertaining  the  theory  of  the  State  which  Dr.  Arnold  did,  he 
naturally  expressed  himself  in  strong  and  unqualified  language  re- 
specting the  regal  supremacy — language  the  unmodified  force  of 
which  might  mislead  others,  setting  out  from  different  principles  of 
the  functions  of  government,  into  the  opinion  that  this  supremacy 
prostrated  the  Church  beneath  a  royal  papacy.  An  additional  expla- 
nation, therefore,  may  not  be  inappropriate  in  this  and  the  following 
notes  on  the  same  paragraph. 

"  In  considering  the  title  of  supreme  head  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 


TO    LECTURE    VI.  291 

land,  given  to  Henry  VIII.  by  the  clergy  of  England,  we  must  be 
careful  to  distinguish  the  sense  in  which  they  allowed  it  to  the  king, 
from  any  exaggerated  and  unsound  meaning  which  may  have  been 
affixed  to  it  by  courtiers  or  lawyers :  for  the  former  only  is  the 
Church  of  England  responsible  ;  the  latter  she  is  not  concerned 
with. 

"When  it  was  proposed  to  the  clergy  of  the  Convocation  of 
Canterbury,  to  acknowledge  the  King  supreme  head  of  the  church 
and  clergy  of  England,  they  refused  to  pass  this  title  simply  and 
unconditionally  ;  and  after  much  discussion,  the  King  was  at  last 
obliged  to  accept  it  with  a  proviso,  introduced  by  the  clergy,  to  the 
following  effect :  '  Ecclesiae  et  cleri  Anglicani  singularem  protee- 
torem  et  unicum  et  supremum  dominum,  et  (quantum  per  Christi 
legem  licet)  etiam  supremum  caput,  ipsius  majestatem  recognosci- 
mus.'" 

PALMER'S  '  Treatise  on  the  Church,''  vol.  i.  part  ii.  ch.  3 

"  The  clergy  of  England,  in  acknowledging  the  supremacy  of 
the  King,  A.  D.  1534,  did  so,  as  Burnet  proves,  with  the  important 
proviso,  '  quantum  per  Christi  legem  licet ;'  which  original  condi- 
tion is  ever  to  be  supposed  in  our  acknowledgment  of  the  royal  su- 
premacy. Consequently  we  give  no  authority  to  the  prince,  except 
what  is  consistent  with  the  maintenance  of  all  those  rights,  liberties, 
jurisdictions,  and  spiritual  powers  which  '  the  law  of  Christ'  con- 
fers on  his  Church." 

II).  Part  I.  ch.  10. 

NOTE  2. — Page  266. 

"  The  first  act  of  the  King  was  to  appoint  Cromwell,  in  1535,  his 
Vicar-General  and  Visitor  of  Monasteries.  The  former  title  was 
certainly  novel,  and  sounded  ill,  but  there  being  no  evidence  that  it 
was  intended  in  a  heterodox  sense,  the  church  was  not  bound  to 
resist  the  title  or  office.  *  * 

"  The  claim  advanced  by  Cromwell  as  the  King's  vicegerent  to 
the  Jirst  seat  in  convocation  was  indisputable.  As  the  represen- 
tative of  the  prince,  he  could  not  be  refused  a  position  which  the 
eecumenical  synods  allotted  to  the  Christian  emperors." 

PALMER'S  '  Treatise,  4r.,'  vol.  i.  part  ii.  ch.  3. 


292  NOTES 

NOTE  3.— Page  266. 

"  It  is  alleged,  that  in  the  time  of  Edward  VI.  all  the  most  im- 
portant changes  in  the  form  of  ordinations,  the  public  service,  the 
body  of  the  canons,  &c.,  were  regulated  by  the  King  or  parliament, 
to  the  annihilation  of  the  church's  power.  This  is  far  from  the  truth. 
The  parliament  only  added  the  force  of  the  temporal  law  to  the 
determinations  of  convocations  or  bishops,  or  at  least  its  regulations 
were  confirmed  by  ecclesiastical  authority.  Thus,  in  1547,  an  act 
passed  for  communion  in  both  kinds,  and  against  private  masses, 
on  the  ground  of  Scripture  and  primitive  practice,  but  the  convoca- 
tion also  agreed  to  it." 

PALMER'S  '  Treatise,  <frc.,'  vol.  i.  part  ii.  ch.  3. 

NOTE  4.— Page  266. 

"  It  is  admitted  that  the  parliament  passed  acts  for  abolishing  the 
papal  jurisdiction  and  establishing  the  regal  supremacy,  with  an 
oath  to  that  effect ;  and  also  for  establishing  the  English  ritual. 
But  these  acts  were  merely  confirmatory  of  the  laws  and  institu- 
tions made  by  the  church  of  England  during  the  reigns  of  Henry 
VIII.  and  Edward  VI.,  which  had  been  indeed  disobeyed  by  the 
schismatics  in  the  reign  of  Mary,  and  annulled  by  the  civil  power, 
but  which  had  never  been  annulled  by  any  legitimate  authority  of 
the  church.  These  acts  were  simply  revivals  of  laws  which  had 
been  formerly  made  with  the  concurrence  of  the  church  of  England  . 
they  only  gave  the  temporal  sanction  to  institutions  which  had  al 
ways  remained  in  their  full  spiritual  force  and  obligation." 

PALMER'S  '  Treatise?  vol.  i.  part  ii.  ch.  5. 

NOTE  5.— Page  266. 

In  this  proof  of  the  identification  of  Church  and  State,  it  is  not 
clear  whether  Dr.  Arnold  intended  to  limit  the  argument  to  the 
King's  council.  There  seems  to  be  no  reason  for  such  a  limit,  for 
the  argument  admits  of  just  the  same  application  to  "  all  that  are 
put  in  authority  under  him,"  (the  king,)  and  also  to  "  all  Christian 
Kings,  Princes,  and  Governors,"  or  in  the  language  of  the  prayer  in 
Ihe  American  liturgy,  "  all  Christian  rulers." 


TO   LECTURE    VI.  293 

NOTE  6. — Page  267. 

King  James's  use  of  the  expression  is  thus  set  forth  in  the  witty 
church-historian,  Fuller's  dramatically  told  account  of  the  Hampton 
court  conference : 

"  His  MAJESTY.— Why,  then,  I  will  tell  you  a  tale  :  After  that 
the  religion  restored  by  King  Edward  VI.  was  soon  overthrown  by 
Queen  Mary  here  in  England,  we  in  Scotland  felt  the  effect  of  it. 
For,  thereupon,  Mr.  Knox  writes  to  the  queen  regent,  a  virtuous 
and  moderate  lady ;  telling  her  that  she  was  the  supreme  head  of 
the  church,  and  charged  her,  as  she  would  answer  it  to  God's  tri- 
bunal, to  take  care  of  Christ's  Evangel,  in  suppressing  the  popish 
prelates,  who  withstood  the  same.  But  how  long,  trow  you,  did 
this  continue  ?  Even  till,  by  her  authority,  the  popish  bishops  were 
repressed,  and  Knox,  with  his  adherents,  being  brought  in,  made 
strong  enough.  Then  began  they  to  make  small  account  of  her 
supremacy,  when,  according  to  that  more  light  wherewith  they 
were  illuminated,  they  made  a  further  reformation  of  themselves. 
How  they  used  the  poor  lady  my  mother,  is  not  unknown,  and  how 
they  dealt  with  me  in  my  minority.  I  thus  apply  it :  my  lords  the 
bishops,  (this  he  said,  putting  his  hand  to  his  hat,)  I  may  thank  you 
that  these  men  plead  thus  for  my  supremacy.  They  think  they 
cannot  make  their  party  good  against  you,  but  by  appealing  unto  it. 
But  if  once  you  were  out  and  they  in,  I  know  what  would  become 

of  my  supremacy  ;  for,  '  No  bishop,  no  king !'  " 

Book  x.  sect.  1. 

NOTE  7. — Page  267. 

In  considering  the  authority  of  this  quotation  from  Knollys's  let- 
ter to  Cecil,  it  is  to  be  judged  not  merely  as  correspondence  from  one 
of  Queen  Elizabeth's  privy-counsellors  to  another,  but  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  the  writer  was  one  of  those  public  men  who  sympa- 
thized strongly  with  the  favourable  feeling  for  the  Puritan  party, 
which  was  entertained  both  in  the  parliaments  and  the  Queen's  cabi- 
net, during  at  least  more  than  the  first  half  of  that  reign.  Mr. 
Hallam  speaks  of  Knollys  as  one  of  "  the  powerful  friends  at  court" 
of  the  Puritans,  and  calls  him  "the  staunch  enemy  of  episcopacy," 


294  NOTES 

though  in  this  there  is  probably  something  of  that  exaggeration  Llto 
which  this  historian  is  occasionally  led  by  some  intemperance  of 
feeling.  (Const.  Hist., vol.  i.  ch.  4.)  Collier, in  his  'Ecclesiastical 
History?  (part  ii.  book  6,)  speaks  of  "  Leicester,  Knowlis,  and  Wal- 
singham,"  as  "  either  puritans,  or  abettors  of  that  party."  With 
more  moderation  than  either,  Mr.  Keble,  in  his  preface  to  *  Hooker's 
Eccles.  Polity,'  (p.  57,)  speaks  of  "  such  persons  as  Knolles  and 
Milmay,  and  others,  who  were  Calvinists  and  Low  Churchmen  on 
principle."  The  editor  of  the  book  Dr.  Arnold  has  quoted  from, 
calls  Knollys  "  a  zealous  puritan." 

Indeed  the  very  letter  from  Sir  Francis  Knollys  that  Dr.  Arnold 
has  quoted,  shows  the  feeling  with  which  he  appears  through  the 
reign  to  have  been  in  the  habit  of  regarding  respectively  the  influ- 
ence of  the  opposite  parties  of  '  purytanes'  and  '  papysts.'  It  is  a 
letter  interceding  to  obtain  fair  dealing  and  equal  justice  for  Cart- 
wright,  and  the  other  early  non-conformists :  after  the  sentence 
quoted,  it  goes  on — "  And  as  touching  their  seditious  going  aboute 
the  same,  if  the  byshoppes,  or  my  Lord  Chancelor,  or  any  for  them, 
could  have  proved  de  facto  that  Carte wrighte  and  his  fellow  pris- 
oners had  gone  aboute  any  such  matter  seditiously,  then  Carte- 
wrighte  and  his  followers  had  been  hanged  before  this  tyme.  But 
her  Majestic  must  keepe  a  forme  of  justyce,  as  well  against  Pury- 
tanes as  any  other  subjectes,  so  that  they  may  be  tryed  in  tyme 
convenient,  whether  they  be  suspected  for  sedition  or  treason,  or 
whatever  name  you  shall  give  unto  it,  being  purytanisme  or  other- 
wyse." 

Knollys  appears  to  have  been  unable  to  apprehend  any  danger  to 
the  Church  of  England  from  the  Puritan  party  in  his  day — then 
only  a  party  within  the  communion  of  the  English  Church,  and  the 
danger  that,  to  his  eye,  was  always  darkening  the  horizon,  was  the 
papal  power.  There  was  indeed  a  combination  of  many  causes 
vvhich  made  it  then  appear  the  most  imminent  and  present  peril. 
The  date  of  the  letter  quoted  was,  it  will  be  observed,  a  short  time 
only  after  England  had  been  threatened  by  the  Spanish  Armada — 
and  it  was  not  many  years  before  that,  that  all  protestant  Europe 
had  been  horror-struck  with  the  atrocities  of  the  massacre  of  St. 
Bartholomew's — Burleigh  himself  having  been  invited  to  the  bloody 
marriage  festivities.  Going  back  a  little  earlier,  the  recollection 


TO    LECTURE    VI.  295 

was  fresh  of  the  Marian  persecutions — the  fires  at  Smithfield  had 
not  been  very  long  extinguished — and  another  cause  of  the  feeling 
alluded  to  is  to  he  found  in  the  state  of  feverish  apprehension  pro- 
duced by  the  papal  bull  of  Pius  V.,  dethroning  Queen  Elizabeth, 
and  by  the  intrigues  for  the  succession  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots — 
appeased  only  by  the  perpetration  of  that  great  national  crime,  the 
tragic  judgment  executed  at  Fotheringay  Castle.  The  Puritan 
movement  was  therefore  countenanced,  not  only  by  the  encourage- 
ment, from  worthless  motives,  of  that  weak  and  wicked  favourite  the 
Earl  of  Leicester,  but  also  conscientiously  by  such  as  Knollys,  who 
were  impelled  by  the  dread  of  the  papacy.  With  these  feelings  it 
appears  that  Knollys  was  active  in  interposing  to  thwart  the  eccle- 
siastical measures  to  enforce  conformity.  That  Roman  Catholic 
dominion  was  the  one  danger  which  filled  his  vision,  is  shown  yet 
more  conclusively  by  another  letter  of  his  in  this  same  collection  of 
the  correspondence  of  the  Elizabethan  statesmen.  It  is  in  January, 
1576,  "(1577,  O.  S.,)  that  he  writes  as  follows  :  "If  her  Majestie 
wol  be  safe,  she  must  comforte  the  hartes  of  those  that  be  her  most 
faythfull  subjects,  even  for  conscyence  sake.  But  if  the  Bishopp 
of  Canterburye  shall  be  deprived,  then  up  startes  the  pryde  and 
practise  of  the  papistes,  and  downe  declyneth  the  comforte  and 
strengthe  of  her  Majestie's  safety."  (Vol.  ii.  p.  75.)  The  primate 
referred  to  is  Grindal,  who,  it  will  be  remembered,  incurred  the 
queen's  displeasure,  suspension  from  his  ecclesiastical  functions, 
and  other  penalties,  in  consequence  of  refusing  to  exercise  them 
for  the  suppression  of  the  new  puritan  practice  of  "  exercises  of 
prophesying"  which  he  desired  rather  to  regulate  than  to  suppress. 
Whatever  may  be  thought  by  persons  of  different  ecclesiastical 
principles,  of  Archbishop  Grindal's  indulgence  to  the  non-conform- 
ists, and  (as  Collier  expresses  it)  "  too  kind  an  opinion  of  the  Cal- 
vinistic  scheme — warping  a  little  to  an  over-indulgence" — whatever 
estimate  may  be  formed  of  the  fitness  of  a  primacy  so  gentle  as 
Grindal's  for  the  times,  coming  as  it  did  between  the  firmness  of 
Parker's  primacy  and  the  vigour  of  Whitgift's,  he  will  be  remem- 
bered as  one  who  was  not  intimidated  by  the  malignity  of  the  mean 

ind  unprincipled  Leicester,  as  one  to  whom,  in  the  exercise  of  his 
powers  in  the  church,  the  voice  of  conscience  and  of  his  God  spake 

ouder  than  the  voice  of  his  queen,  and  who  for  his  piety  and  vir- 


296  NOTES 

tues  is  commemorated  as  the  "good  Grindal,"  of  the  historian 
Fuller,  and  as  "  the  good  shepherd,  Algrind,"  by  the  poet  Spenser, 
with  oft-repeated  affection  in  his  allegorical  pastorals. 


NOTE  8. — Page  268. 

Sir  Egerton  Brydges,  in  his  '  Memoirs  of  the  Peers  of  England 
during  the  reign  of  James  the  First,'  passionately  describes  the 
fallen  condition  of  the  nobility  at  this  period  of  English  history : 

"  What  was  the  character  of  the  nobility  during  this  inglorious 
and  disgraceful  reign,  that,  by  alternate  acts  of  tyranny  and  pusil- 
lanimous concession,  sowed  those  seeds  of  civil  war  which  a  few 
years  afterwards  overturned  the  monarchy,  and  brought  the  King 
to  the  scaffold  1  We  see  the  ancient,  illustrious,  and  gallant  fami- 
ly of  Vere,  Sir  Francis  and  Sir  Horace,  with  their  cousins  Henry 
and  Robert,  Earls  of  Oxford,  incapable  of  dozing  away  their  lives 
on  the  bed  of  sloth,  seeking  those  scenes  of  action  abroad  which 
their  own  timid  Prince  could  not  afford  them,  and  carrying  arms  to 
the  powers  contending  on  the  continent.  *  *  * 

"  James,  on  his  arrival  in  England,  was  both  too  fond  of  his 
amusements,  and  too  ignorant  of  business,  to  take  much  of  the  man- 
agement of  public  affairs  on  himself;  while  the  dependents  and 
companions  he  brought  with  him  were  equally  incompetent,  being 
men  of  pleasure,  inexperienced  in  concerns  of  state,  and  intent  only 
on  gathering  the  golden  harvests  of  private  fortune,  which  they  saw 
within  their  grasp.  The  government  of  the  nation,  therefore,  was 
suffered  for  some  time  to  continue  in  the  hands  of  the  former  min- 
istry. Lord  Buckhurst  remained  at  the  head  of  the  treasury ;  that 
able  politician  Cecil  kept  his  post  of  secretary  of  state ;  and  Eger- 
ton still  presided  over  the  court  of  chancery.  The  last  luckily  sur- 
vived through  the  greater  part  of  this  reign,  to  preserve  the  fame 
and  integrity  of  that  sacred  Bench.  But  the  two  former  died  ear- 
lier ;  and  as  James  was  now  grown  more  confident,  and  his  favour- 
ites more  daring,  the  post  which  was  vacated  by  the  death  of  one 
of  the  most  efficient  and  long-exercised  statesmen  in  Europe,  was 
filled  in  succession  by  those  minions,  Carr  and  Villiers.  It  is  ap- 
parent that  the  old  nobility  fled  for  the  most  part  from  a  cr urt  of 


TO    LECTURE    VI.  297 

needy,  gaping,  and  upstart  dependents,  of  splendid  poverty,  coarse 
manners,  and  lazy  and  inglorious  amusements." 

Preface,  p.  18. 


NOTE  9.— Page  268. 

"  Every  thing  concurred,  in  the  Elizabethan  era,  to  give  a  vig- 
our and  a  range  to  genius,  to  which  neither  prior  nor  subsequent 
times  have  been  equally  propitious.  An  heroic  age,  inflamed  with 
the  discovery  of  new  worlds,  gave  increased  impulse  to  fancies  en- 
riched by  access  both  to  the  recovered  treasures  of  ancient  litera- 
ture, and  the  wild  splendours  of  Italian  fiction.  A  command  of 
language  equal  to  the  great  occasion  was  not  wanting.  For  what 
is  there  in  copiousness  or  force  of  wTords,  or  in  clearness  of  ar- 
rangement, or  in  harmony  or  grandeur  of  modulation,  which  Spen- 
ser at  least  has  not  given  proofs  that  that  age  could  produce  T' 

Sir  EGERTON  BRYDGES'  "Exccrpta  Tudoriana." 

*  *  "  There  was  much  in  the  times  of  Queen  Elizabeth  that  was 
propitious  to  great  intellectual  development.  The  English  lan- 
guage was  then  well-grown  ;  it  was  not  only  adequate  to  the  com- 
mon wants  of  speech,  but  it  was  affluent  in  expressions,  which  had 
become  incorporated  into  it  from  the  literature  of  antiquity.  An- 
cient learning  had  been  made,  as  it  were,  part  of  the  modern  mind 
of  Europe ;  and  in  England,  under  Elizabeth,  the  great  universi- 
ties, which  during  the  reigns  immediately  before,  had  suffered  from 
violence  that  penetrated  even  those  tranquil  abodes,  were  gathering 
anew  their  scattered  force.  There  was  scattered,  too,  through  the 
realm  the  popular  literature  of  the  minstrelsy,  familiar,  in  its  va- 
rious forms,  upon  the  highways  and  in  the  thoroughfares,  and  by 
the  fireside  in  the  long  English  winter  evening.  The  language  was 
not  only  enriched  by  phraseology  of  ancient  birth,  but  it  had  also 
gained  what  was  more  precious  than  aught  that  could  come  from 
the  domains  of  extinct  paganism — for  the  word  of  God  had  taken 
the  form  of  English  words,  and  thus  a  sacred  glory  was  reflected 
upon  the  language  itself.  The  civil  and  ecclesiastical  condition  of 
the  country  was  also  favourable  to  intellectual  advancement,  for 
there  was  in  abundance  all  that  could  cheer  and  animate  a  nation's 


298  NOTES 

heart.  There  was  the  romantic  enthusiasm  of  early  expeditions  to 
remote  and  unexplored  regions ;  there  was  repose  after  the  agony 
of  ecclesiastical  bloodshedding ;  and  whatever  feverish  apprehen- 
sion remained  of  foreign  aggression  or  domestic  discord,  there  was 
the  proud  sense  of  national  independence  and  national  power ;  the 
moral  force  greater  even  than  the  physical.  Spiritual  subserviency 
to  Rome  was  at  an  end,  and  England  was  once  more  standing  upon 
the  foundations  of  the  ancient  British  Church.  It  was  the  meet 
glory  of  such  an  age,  that  there  arose  upon  it,  as  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury was  drawing  to  a  close,  in  succession,  the  glory  of  the  genius 
of  Edmund  Spenser  and  of  William  Shakspere.  The  intellectual 
energy  of  the  times  is  shown  by  the  large  company  of  the  poets : 
a  list  of  two  hundred  English  poets  assigned  to  what  is  usually 
styled  the  Elizabethan  age,  is  thought  by  Mr.  Hallam  (History  of 
Literature)  not  to  exceed  the  true  number.  What  is  yet  more 
characteristic  of  an  age  of  thought  and  of  action,  is  the  fertility  of 
dramatic  literature.  In  a  quotation  from  Hey  wood,  one  of  Shaks- 
pere's  contemporaries,  given  by  Charles  Lamb,  (in  his  'Specimens,') 
it  appears  that  Heywood  had  '  either  an  entire  hand,  or  at  the  least 
a  main  finger'  in  220  plays,  much  the  greater  number  of  which  has 
perished.  Such  was  one  of  the  ways  in  which,  as  in  the  palmy 
age  of  the  Athenian  drama,  the  activity  of  the  times  was  finding  at 

once  utterance  and  relief." 

MS.  Lectures  on  English  Poetry. 


NOTE  10.— Page  269. 

c^> 

*  *  "  So  it  is  that  all  things  come  best  in  their  season  ;  that  po- 
litical power  is  then  most  happily  exercised  by  a  people,  when  it 
has  not  been  given  to  them  prematurely,  that  is,  before,  in  the  nat- 
ural progress  of  things,  they  feel  the  want  of  it.  Security  for  per- 
son and  property  enables  a  nation  to  grow  without  interruption ;  in 
contending  for  this,  a  people's  sense  of  law  and  right  is  wholesome- 
ly exercised ;  meantime,  national  prosperity  increases,  and  brings 
with  it  an  increase  of  intelligence,  till  other  and  more  necessary 
wants  being  satisfied,  men  awaken  to  the  highest  earthly  desire  of 
the  ripened  mind — the  desire  of  taking  an  active  share  in  the  great 
work  of  government.  The  Roman  commons  abandoned  the  high- 


TO    LECTURE    VI.  299 

est  magistracies  to  the  patricians  for  a  period  of  many  years ;  but 
they  continued  to  increase  in  prosperity  and  in  influence,  and  what 
the  fathers  had  wisely  yielded,  their  sons  in  the  fulness  of  time  ac- 
quired. So  the  English  house  of  commons,  in  the  reign  of  Ed- 
ward III.,  declined  to  interfere  in  questions  of  peace  and  war,  as 
being  too  high  for  them  to  compass ;  but  they  would  not  allow  the 
crown  to  lake  their  money  without  their  own  consent ;  and  so  the 
nation  grew,  and  the  influence  of  the  house  of  commons  grew  along 
with  it,  till  that  house  has  become  the  great  and  predominant  power 
in  the  British  constitution," 

History  of  Rome ,  vol.  i.,  343. 

Dr.  Arnold,  in  one  of  his  letters,  speaks  of  the  historical  Essay 
in  his  Thucydides,  (Appendix  No.  1,)  as  "  a  full  dissertation  on  the 
progress  of  a  people  towards  liberty,  and  their  unfitness  for  it  at  an 
earlier  stage."  (No.  25.) 


NOTE  11.—  Page  271. 

"  The  aristocratical  hatred  against  Socrates  is  exhibited  in  the 
Clouds  of  Aristophanes ;  and  the  famous  speech  of  Cleon  on  the 
question  of  the  punishment  of  the  revolted  Mytileneans,  shows  the 
same  spirit  in  connection  with  the  strong  democratical  party.  Polit- 
ical parties  are  not  the  ultimate  distinction  between  man  and  man; 
there  are  higher  points,  whether  for  good  or  evil,  on  which  a  moral 
sympathy  unites  those  who  politically  are  most  at  variance  with 
each  other ;  and  so  the  common  dread  and  hatred  of  improvement, 
of  truth,  of  principle — in  other  words,  of  all  that  is  the  light  and 
life  of  man,  has,  on  more  than  one  occasion,  united  in  one  cause  all 
who  are  low  in  intellect  and  morals,  from  the  highest  rank  in  socie- 
ty down  to  the  humblest." 

History  of  Rome,  vol.  i.,  p.  346,  note. 


NOTE  12.— Page  274. 

"  The  Jesuits  cannot  be  accused  of  neglecting  to  give  information 
on  physical  subjects  to  their  scholars.  Nor  does  it  appear  that  they 
attempted  to  restore  old  theories  on  these  matters,  or  to  teach  any 


300  NOTES 

other  opinions  than  those  which  had  the  genera,  sanction  of  phile 
phers  in  their  day.  As  the  Dominicans  and  the  Franciscans  we 
the  means  of  reversing  the  papal  decree  against  Aristotle,  so  it  seem; 
as  if  the  Jesuits  had  practically  reversed  the  decree  against  Galileo, 
rather  eagerly  availing  themselves  of  the  direction  which  men's  minda 
were  taking  towards  physical  inquiries,  to  turn  them  away  from  inqui- 
ries into  subjects  more  immediately  concerning  themselves.  Here, 
as  elsewhere,  their  instruction  proceeded  upon  one  principle,  and  in 
one  regular,  coherent  system.  Teach  every  thing,  be  it  physics, 
history,  or  philosophy,  in  such  wise  that  the  student  shall  feel  he  is 
not  apprehending  a  truth,  but  only  receiving  a  maxim  upon  trust, 
or  studying  a  set  of  probabilities.  Acting  upon  this  rule,  they  could 
publish  an  edition  of  the  '  Principia,'  mentioning  that  the  main  doc- 
trine of  it  had  been  denounced  by  the  Pope,  and  was  therefore  to  be 
rejected ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  recommending  the  study  of  the 
book  as  containing  a  series  of  very  ingenious  arguments  and  appa- 
rent demonstrations.  There  was  no  curl  of  the  lip  in  this  utterance, 
strange  as  it  may  seem  to  us,  nor,  in  the  sense  we  commonly  give 
to  the  word,  any  dishonesty.  The  editors  did  not  believe  that  New 
ton  had  proved  his  point.  They  had  not  enough  of  the  feeling  of 
certainty  in  their  minds,  to  think  that  any  thing  could  be  proved. 
All  is  one  sea  of  doubts,  perplexities,  possibilities  ;  the  great  neces- 
sity is  to  feel  that  we  cannot  arrive  at  truth,  and  that  therefore  we 
must  submit  ourselves  to  an  infallible  authority.  This  was  the 
habit  of  their  mind  ;  whether  it  was  a  true  one  or  no  the  religious 
man  will  be  able  to  resolve  when  he  has  considered  its  effects  in 
producing  the  scepticism  of  the  eighteenth  century ;  the  scientific 
man,  when  he  thinks  how  hopeless  of  progression  those  who  cherish 
it  must  be." 

MAURICE'S  'Kingdom  of  Christ?  part  ii.  ch.  v   sect.  5. 

The  following  is  the  remarkable  note,  which  Professor  Maurice 
alludes  to,  and  which  was  prefaced  by  the  Jesuit  Commentators  on 
the  *  Principia,'  to  the  Edition  published  by  them  in  1742  : 
"  PP.  LE  SEUR  ET  JACQUIER 

DECLARATIO. 

Newtonus  in  hoc  tertio  Libro  Telluris  motae  hypothesim  assumet. 
Autoris  Propositiones  aliter  explicari  non  poterant  nisi  eadem  quo- 


TO    LECTURE    VI.  301 

que  facta  hypothesi.  Hinc  alienam  coacti  sumus  gerere  personam 
Caeterum  latis  a  summis  Pontificibus  contra  Telluris  motum  Decretia 
nos  obsequi  profitemur." 

NOTE  13.— Page  276. 

*  *  "  f v  n(v  yap  elpf/vrj  Kal  ayadots  irpdynaciv  a?  rt  TrdXtt?  Kal  ol  ISi&rai  apd- 
vovs  raj  yvoSftaj  c^ovcri  Std  rb  p?i  eg  aKovaiovs  avdyKas  Trinrctv'  6  Se  7r<5Ae//oj  u^eXwv 
TJJV  cviropiav  TOV  xa0'  fiptpav  fllaiog  ^aaJcaAoj,  Kal  Trpdf  ra  irap6vTa  ra$  (5pya$  riav 


"  War,"  (in  Dr.  Arnold's  version  of  the  last  phrase,)  "  makes 
men's  tempers  as  hard  as  their  circumstances."  Hist,  of  Rome, 
ch.  21. 

In  the  historical  Essay  appended  to  his  Edition  of  Thucydides, 
Dr.  Arnold  remarks,  "  that  the  great  enemy  of  society  in  its  present 
stage  is  war  :  if  this  calamity  be  avoided,  the  progress  of  improve- 
ment is  sure  ;  but  attempts  to  advance  the  cause  of  freedom  by  the 
sword  are  incalculably  perilous.  War  is  a  state  of  such  fatal  in- 
toxication, that  it  makes  men  careless  of  improving,  and  sometimes 
even  of  repairing  their  internal  institutions ;  and  thus  the  course  of 
national  happiness  may  be  cut  short,  not  only  by  foreign  conquest, 
but  by  a  state  of  war  poisoning  the  blood,  destroying  the  healthy 
tone  of  the  system  and  setting  up  a  feverish  excitement,  till  the  dis- 
order terminates  in  despotism."  Vol  I.  p.  522.  Appendix  I 

NOTE  14.— Page  278. 

The  mind  of  Arnold  was  so  deeply  imbued  with  the  Greek  phi- 
losophy, that  in  following  his  thoughts  in  this  Lecture,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  understand  what  was  the  nature  of  that  democratic  aKo\aaia, 
which  he  and  the  best  of  those  ancient  philosophers  abhorred  no 
less  than  tyranny  in  its  other  forms  of  selfish  aristocracy  or  oli- 
garchy. With  his  favourite  Aristotle  Arnold  sympathized  strongly  in 
aversion  to  absolutism,  whether  it  be  the  uncontrolled  power  of  one 
or  of  a  few,  or  of  the  many,  and  in  the  deep  reverence  for  the  su- 
premacy of  law  over  will. 

The  nature  of  axobaaia  as  a  vicious  condition  of  individual  life,  is 

discussed  with  characteristic  precision  by  Aristotle,  (Ethic.  Nic. 

26 


302  NOTES 

Book  VII.  in  several  chapters.)  It  is  the  very  opposite  of  that 
well-regulated,  disciplined,  and  wisely-tempered  condition  of  mind 
described  by  the  term  w<ppo<rfvii.  The  «UoXa<rra  is  also,  with  the  finest 
precision  of  ethical  science,  distinguished  from  the  «kpa<r/a,  moral 
powerlessness,  want  of  self-command ;  the  <J*(jam  is  feeble  or  help- 
less in  resisting  passions — in  withstanding  temptation — a  fool  of 
passion  or  of  impulse,  while  the  eUdXaoroj,  the  unchastened,  is  wicked 
willingly — he  goes  wrong,  not  by  the  mere  sway  of  passion  or  the 
negative  absence  of  moral  principle,  but  knowingly,  habitually,  pur» 
posely :  he  marks  out  for  himself  a  course  of  vicious  pleasure  or 
excessive  indulgence,  and  then  as  a  matter  of  deliberate  choice  he 
follows  it  up  for  its  own  sake,  even  more  than  for  any  return  it 
brings  him  in  the  way  of  sensual  gratification — 6  piv  ras  (urep/JoXas 

SluKuv  TUV  })?>  1(1)1',  ty  KaO'  6irip/3oXaj,  f)  Sta  irpoatpffftv   Kai  Si*  a6ra;,  KUI  fjujfitv  St 

Irtpov  dxofiatvov,  d/tdXaffrof .  To  apply  to  this  pagan  ethical  term  words, 
that  a  Christian  poet  has  put  into  the  mouth  of  Archbishop  Chichely, 
the  axoXaata  is  the  '  unwhipt  offending  Adam.'*  The  &Ko\avia  is 
viciousness  deliberate  and  of  choice,  while  the  i*pa<rfa  is  rathe* 
without  any  settled  principle  of  vice — TO  ptv  yap,  rapa  xpoalpeviv,  rd  & 
Kara  irpoaiptaiv  ecrnv.  In  the  character  of  Falstaff,  for  instance,  that 
which  is  erroneously  regarded  as  cowardice,  is  a  complete  illustra- 
tion of  dKoXaaia  in  one  of  its  forms,  while  the  genuine  cowardice  of 
Pistol  or  Parolles  is  aKpavla.  Of  this  latter  quality  the  character  of 
Macbeth  is  also  a  specimen,  at  least  during  the  early  part  of  his  de- 
pravity :  the  character  of  lago,  on  the  other  hand,  is  one  of  the  most 
intense  exhibitions  ever  given  by  poetic  invention,  of  the  &>co\aola — 
that  corruption  of  conscience  denounced  in  the  prophet's  words : 
"  Woe  unto  them  that  call  evil  good,  and  good  evil ;  that  put  darknes* 
for  light,  and  light  for  darkness  !"  This  wilful  perversion  of  principle 
— moral  disorganization — was  signally  shown  in  many  of  the  promi- 
nent men  in  the  French  Revolution,  and  it  was  after  being  an  eye-wit- 
ness of  the  advance  of  that  convulsion  to  its  extreme  of  wickedness, 
that  the  character  of  Oswald'  in  Wordsworth's  tragedy  of"  The  Bor- 
derers" was  conceived,  under  a  deep  sense  of  '  the  awful  truth  that 
there  are  no  limits  to  the  hardening  of  the  heart,  and  the  perversion 

*  "  Consideration  like  an  angel  came, 

And  whipped  the  offending  Adam  out  of  him." 

Henry  the  HftA.'    Act  1. 1 


TO    LECTURE    VI.  303 

of  the  understanding  to  which  sin  and  crime  may  carry  their  slaves.' 
The  condition  of  the  dK6\acrros  was  regarded  as  desperate  too  by  the 
Greek  moralist — fy/i/m  yap  TV  npoaiptau — the  disease  is  incurable,  for 
it  is  inveterate  by  lack  of  discipline,  and  by  choice  and  habit — Avdyni 
yap  TOVTC v  /*r/  elvat  ptTapt.\iiTiK6v'  war'  avtaros — remorse  and  reformation  are 
impossible,  for  the  vice  is  not  mere  passion,  but  it  is  a  principle ;  it 
is  cold-blooded  iniquity,  natrl  6e  uv  Sofcc  xttpuv  chat,  tl  TIS  M  fTtiev^v, 
Trparroi  n  alffxpov  »}  el  atytipa  (rnQv^v'  Kal  el  /i$  dpyitypevos  TVTTTOI,  ?  cl 
.  .  .  <5td  6  a.K6\a<JTO$  X^P"**  rov  aicpaToiJs,  ('  Ethic.  NicS  Book 

VII.  ch.  8.)  This  utter  hopelessness  of  restoration,  while  it  shows 
the  strong  view  which  the  Greek  moralist  took  of  the  a/coAWa,  illus- 
trates also  how  the  highest  heathen  philosophy  in  its  ethics  reaches 
limits  which  are  transcended  by  Christian  morals. 

Now  let  us  pass  to  the  political  &K0\aola,  and  the  reproach  on  this 
account  to  which  Dr.  Arnold  alludes  as  having  been  cast  by  Greek 
writers  on  the  democracies.  His  favourite  Herodctus  ('  Thalia,' 
80-83)  relates  a  discussion  concerning  the  form  of  government  to 
be  established  when  the  Persian  throne  became  vacant  by  the  death 
of  Cambyses  :  Otanes  proposes  a  democracy,  but  Megabyzus  replies 
that  to  transfer  the  power  to  the  multitude — rd  irXqOos — would  be 
missing  the  wisest  plan,  for  that  nothing  is  more  empty  of  under- 
standing— atwETwTepov— or  more  full  of  outrageous  insolence — ippiff- 
rdTcpov — than  the  good-for-nothing  crowd — S^Aou  &xptyov — and  that  it 
was  not  at  all  to  be  tolerated  that,  when  men  escape  from  the  vio- 
lence of  a  despot,  they  should  fall  upon  that  of  the  licentious  people 
— tnpov  &Ko\dffTov.  Again,  this  vice  is  brought  into  close  connection 
with  the  democracies  by  Xenophon — if  the  author  of  this  treatise — 
Rep.  Athen.,  i.  5,)  where  he  speaks  of  the  contrast  between  the 
government  by  the  better  sort  and  that  by  the  common  people — 

lv  yap  ro?j  fisXrlffrois  evt  auco^atria  re  6\iyiaTij  KOI  aSiKia,  aKplffeia  Se  irXaarr] 
KOI  el;  TU  %pij<TTd'  iv  tie  TW  Stifjup  afiaQta  re  ir^eicrrrj  Kal  ara^ta  KOI  irovripia — 

licentiousness  (acacia)  being  in  contrast  with  '  scrupulous  regard 
for  what  is  right.'  Plato,  (Rep.  viii.)  without  perhaps  using  the 
term  d/coAa^a  throughout  the  whole  book,  is  yet  describing  the  thing 
itself,  as  existing  in  a  democracy  which  gives  indiscriminate  license 
— l£ovoia  irou'iv  '6  n  TIS  /JouAerat—  where  there  is  great  talk  about  liberty 
— and  the  acolastic  defilement  of  the  conscience  manifests  itself  in 
moral  misnomer — the  calling  evil  good — avap%tav  n 


304  NOTES 

ns,  AvalSeiav  Se\  avfytav  K.  r.  X.,  lawlessness  liberty,  and  impudence 
manliness,  &c. — where  there  is  a  want  of  respect  for  age,  and  au- 
thority, and  station — the  son  making  himself  equal  to  the  father, 
neither  honouring  nor  fearing — ^re  alffxvveadai  tfTtSeSitvai — his  parents 
— the  pupil  treating  the  teacher  with  contempt — and  the  resident 
alien— /<froiKOff— putting  himself  on  a  level  with  the  citizen — and  where 
the  father  is  under  the  controul  of  his  boys — and  the  teacher  stands 
in  awe  of  his  scholars,  and  pays  court  to  them,  and  old  men  play 
the  young  man,  for  fear  of  seeming  strict  and  authoritative — ariw 
urft  ScffiroTtKol — Aristotle  describes  in  various  passages  the  kinds  of 
democracy  in  which  the  &Ko\ac(a  prevails — when  for  instance  the 
multitude  has  the  mastery  over  the  laws— SITOV  rd  TrXijfloj  Ktpiov  TUV  v^&>> 
— and  the  equality  is  by  numbers  and  not  by  worth — *aT'  dpidpo* 
and  not  *ar'  a£lav — and  justice  is  made  to  mean  whatever  the  ma- 
jority please — KOI  8  n  Sv  Sdfr  rots  ir\elooi,  TOUT'  ilvai  TO  Slicaiov — whenever 
the  supremacy  of  the  constitution  is  made  to  yield  to  mere  votes  or 
decrees,  which  is  brought  about  by  the  demagogue  who  corrupts  the 
popular  government  as  the  flatterer  spoils  a  king — 8rav  rd  t/>»;0/<r/<ara 

Kvpia  ?},  dXAa  fit]  6  vop.o$  . . .  STTOV  5'  ol  vdfioi  firj  tioi  KVjitoi,  tvravOa  yivovTat  ^Tjfjtayuyoi 

— the  supremacy  of  the  multitude  over  the  law  being  encouraged 
for  selfish  purposes  by  the  demagogue,  who  makes  every  thing  a 
subject  of  direct  appeal  to  the  people,  whose  opinion  at  the  same 

time  he  can  fashion  Or  COntroul airtot  $(  hoi  TOV  efvat  ra  ^r\$ia\iaTa  Kvpia, 

dAXtt  //»j  rols  v6nois,  ovroi,  itavra  &vdyovT£{  th  rbv  trjuov  .  av^aivti  yap  alrols 
yiveaOai  //cyoXojj,  $ta  rbt  TOP  //i'v  ^TIJIOV  ilvai  icdpiov,  rqs  &c  TOV  Sfipov  fofrs,  TOVTOIS  ' 

wMtTat  yap  TO  jrXrtfof  ro«5roif .  (Polit.  iv.  4.)    This  is  that  absence  of  law 

which  destroys  a  polity — STTOV  yap  //ij  vdpoi  apxovcri,  OVK  £<TTI  TroXiTcia.      Ill 

the  fifth  book,  (ch.  7,)  Aristotle  shows  that  the  character  of  the 
polity  is  preserved  only  by  the  presence  of  law,  and  that  it  may  be 
destroyed  when  the  principal  element  of  it  is  pushed  to  excess — 

jroXXa  yap  T&V  SOKOVVTWV  SrjpOTi*G>v  Xuei  raf  SrjpoKpaTias  .  .  .  Oi  £'  oldpcvoi  TatiTJjv 

nvai  (jilav  aplTtjv,  'i\Kovaiv  els  Ttjv  uTrcp/JoX^j/,  and  it  is  of  this  that  the  Stagy- 
rite  gives  his  homely  illustration  of  the  nose,  which  may  deviate 
somewhat  from  the  most  perfect  form — the  straightness  of  which  is 
nost  beautiful,  (the  Grecian,) — r^v  tWvTriTa  Tf/v  «aXXtar>7» — and  become 
a  little  curved  or  depressed — n-po?  TO  ypwbv  %  TO  aipbv — without  losing 
its  beauty  and  grace,  but  it  may  become  such  a  beak,  or  so  fiat,  as 
not  to  look  like  a  nose  at  all — &OTC  pySi  ptVa  Ttoijaai  fatvcoOat.  This  is 


TO  LECTURE  VI.  305 

just  what  happens,  adds  Aristotle,  in  governments,  when  their  due 
proportions  are  lost,  and  the  predominant  element  is  carried  to  ex- 
cess, so  that  whether  it  be  lawless  oligarchy  or  lawless  democracy, 
it  is  hideous  political  deformity.  In  another  passage  Aristotle  has 
shown  how  when  a  popular  government  becomes  extravagantly 
democratic,  intractable  licentiousness  will  surely  engender  tyranny 

IK  faiioKpartas  TTJS  vtaviK^rdrrjg . .  .  ytvcrat  Tvpavvlg.     (Book  IV.  ch.  9.) 

The  &Ko\aff(a.  that  Dr.  Arnold  refers  to  as  the  vice  of  the  ancient 
democracies,  appears  then  to  have  been  the  undisciplined,  ungov- 
ernable condition  of  deliberate  and  habitual  lawlessness,  taking  this 
word,  however,  not  in  a  mere  negative  sense,  but  rather  as  describ- 
ing that  state  of  things  where  men  make  a  law  of  their  own  passions 
— impatient  of  authority,  human  or  divine — what  Milton  calls  the 
"senseless  mood  that  bawls  for  freedom,"  but  meaning  "license 
when  they  cry  liberty."  The  democratic  automata  that  is  referred 
to  in  the  text,  can  be  briefly  and  fitly  defined,  only  with  an  ana- 
chronism, as  unchastized,  systematic  Jacobinism. 

NOTE  15.— Page  279. 

In  connection  with  this  eloquent  passage,  there  should  be  read, 
for  either  original  or  renewed  enjoyment  of  one  of  the  noblest 
pieces  in  English  historical  literature,  the  well-known  character  of 
Lucius  Gary,  Lord  Falkland — "  the  incomparable,"  in  Clarendon's 
history.  Dr.  Arnold's  biographer  has  well  shown  the  peculiar 
sympathy  that  was  felt  with  Falkland  by  Arnold,  and  indeed  for 
any  one  who  can  find  in  history  something  more  than  a  record  of 
national  events — of  the  aggregate  action  of  courts  and  armies- — 
something  to  feed  the  sense  of  admiration  with,  there  is  in  the 
character  of  Falkland,  dying  young  as  he  did  in  battle,  and  in  a 
disastrous  cause,  a  combination  of  worth  that  has  given  an  almost 
romantic  glory  to  his  name  :  the  Christian  statesman,  scholar,  and 
soldier — a  loyalist  in  the  true  and  noblest  sense  of  the  title,  up- 
holding the  law  against  the  monarch  and  with  the  monarch — his 
short  life,  a  sad  and  strenuous  one,  has  left  the  memory  of  heroism 
and  martyrdom.  It  is  a  martyr's  glory  that  Arnold  gives  to  the 
memory  of  Falkland  ;  and  what  he  thought  of  that  glory,  he  has 
elsewhere  said  with  fervid  eloquence. 

26* 


NOTES 

"  The  conqueror  and  the  martyr  are  alike  God's  instruments ; 
but  it  is  the  privilege  of  his  conscious  and  willing  instruments  to  be 
doubly  and  merely  blessed ;  the  benefits  of  their  work  to  others  are 
unalloyed  by  evil,  while  to  themselves  it  is  the  perfecting  and  not 
the  corrupting  of  their  moral  being  ;  when  it  is  done,  they  are  not 
cast  away  as  instruments  spoiled  and  worthless,  but  partake  of  the 
good  which  they  have  given,  and  enjoy  forever  the  love  of  men,  and 
the  blessing  of  God." 

History  of  Rome,  chap,  xxxviii. 

NOTE  16.— Page  281. 

There  is  not  in  these  Lectures  a  passage  more  strikingly  char- 
acteristic of  the  author,  than  this  in  which  he  expresses  his  doubt 
respecting  the  Athenian  a-K^a-y^awrj,  and  does  not  spare  a  rebuke  to 
that  meek  citizen,  good  Isaac  Walton.  Indeed,  it  is  hardly  pos- 
sible, without  a  smile,  to  consider  the  contrast  of  the  various  virtues 
of  the  head-master  of  Rugby,  and  of  the  no  less  well-honoured  angler 
— opposite  merits  which  it  will  be  better  to  comprehend  under  the 
charity  of  uncensorious,  catholic  judgment,  than  to  set  in  opposition. 
It  would  be  a  pity  too  to  discover  asperity  in  Dr.  Arnold's  allusion 
to  Walton,  against  whose  inoffensive  and  sweet-spirited  character 
the  only  writer  who  has  ever  uttered  a  harsh  or  unkind  word  was 
that  fierce  polemic  Bishop  Warburton.  The  contrast  is  indeed 
most  remarkable — Arnold's  impetuous  temperament  and  undaunted, 
unfailing  energy — painfully  alive  to  what  he  regarded  as  social,  or 
political,  or  ecclesiastical  evil,  and,  though  despondent  of  the  power 
to  remove  or  mitigate  it,  always  earnest,  prompt,  and  strenuous  in 
putting  into  action  all  the  ability  he  had  at  command :  in  the  famil- 
iarity of  correspondence  with  one  of  his  family,  he  exclaims,  "  I 
must  write  a  pamphlet  in  the  holidays,  or  I  shall  burst."  When 
Isaac  Walton's  lot  was  cast  upon  more  troubled  and  evil  days — 
when  the  church  and  the  state  he  was  loyal  to  were  tumbling  down 
in  the  civil  war,  he  appears  to  have  shut  up  his  shop  in  London 
and  gone  fishing.  In  revolutionary  times,  it  was  his  vocation  to 
suffer  rather  than  to  act.  When  the  Covenanters  marched  into 
England  in  1643,  he  writes,  "  This  I  saw,  and  suffered  by  it."  He 
was  faithful  to  the  afflicted  cause,  and,  powerless  in  helping  or  re- 


TO    LECTURE    VI.  307 

trieving  it,  he  was  uncomplaining.  The  good  work  he  was  reserved 
for  was  to  record  the  "  lives"  of  those  pious  men  whose  names 
still  cluster  round  his  memory. 

The  aitpayii6ffvvn  of  the  Athenians,  spoken  of  in  the  lecture,  must 
be  considered  in  its  relation  peculiarly  to  the  national  character  of 
that  people,  and  their  political  and  social  condition.  The  Corin- 
thians described  them  (Thucydides,  b.  i.  70)  as  a  race  of  men  who 
look  upon  quiet  with  nothing  to  do,  as  no  less  an  affliction  than  hard- 
working business,  so  that  if  any  one  were  to  sum  up  their  character 
by  saying  that  they  were  born,  neither  to  have  any  enjoyment  of  re- 
pose themselves,  nor  to  let  anybody  else  have  it,  he  would  say  truly 

— ^vptyopdv  rt  o«x'  rjaaov  fi<rv%iav  dirpdypova  5}  dff^oX/av  (xlirovov  wore  ci  nj 
avrovs  !-vvc\wv  <j>atrj  trttyvKivai  (m  r<J5  p^jre  aiirovs  c%£tv  fjavxlav  \nf\rt  TOV$  a'XXocj 

dv6pwnovs  iSv,  6p6G>s  &v  eutoi.  And  Pericles,  in  his  funeral  oration, 
makes  it  the  peculiar  glory  of  the  Athenians,  that  they  held  the  re- 
tiring citizen,  the  man  who  abstained  from  public  and  political  work, 
to  be  not  merely  one  who  does  not  busy  himself  about  matters — 
enrpdynova — but  downright  good-for-nothing — dxp^ov. 

When  this  propensity  of  Athenian  character  and  society  went  on 
increasing,  a  different  estimate  began  to  be  entertained  of  the  re- 
tiring citizen,  both  by  poet  and  philosopher,  who  with  sarcastic  or 
grave  reproof  did  not  fail  to  condemn  the  morbid  excitement,  the 
turmoil,  the  restless  activity,  the  7roXwirpay/no<run7  of  political  life  ;  and, 
indeed,  the  judgment  to  be  pronounced  upon  the  aTcpay^oa^vrj  must 
after  all  be  only  a  relative  one — relative  chiefly  to  the  state  of  so- 
ciety from  which  escape  is  sought.  When  the  inordinate  increase 
and  corruption  of  the  Athenian  courts,  with  the  six  thousand  *  di- 
casts,'  and  three  hundred  court-days  in  the  year,  developed  the 
full  force  of  such  a  system,  with  a  people  who  had  a  passion  for 
litigation,  and  for  whom  the  administration  of  law  had  a  sort  of 
dramatic  interest,  then  seclusion  became  almost  the  only  security 
— an  imperfect  one — for  property,  or  liberty,  or  life.  In  his  Aris- 
tophanes, in  the  introduction  to  '  The  Knights,'  Mr.  Mitchell  gives 
this  account  of  the  Airpdypovcs — "  While  the  poor,  the  idle,  and  the 
vicious,  pour  in  by  crowds  for  a  gratuity  thus  easily  obtained, 
(pay  for  attendance  in  the  courts,)  those  of  better  circumstances 
either  withdraw  from  the  assembly  altogether,  or,  if  they  take  part 
in  its  deliberations,  form  so  inconsiderable  a  minority,  that  all  meas- 


308  NOTES 

ures  are  carried  by  mere  numbers,  without  any  reference  "/ 
telligence  or  property;  hence  they  say  that  those  best  <j  ufiet 
for  the  management  of  public  affairs,  finding  that  they  c?n  nei- 
ther initiate  what  their  own  wisdom  would  suggest,  nor  pursue 
•what  the  prudence  of  others  would  recommend,  retire  in  disgust, 
leaving  the  conduct  of  public  affairs  to  men  the  least  competent 
to  direct  them."  p.  xxviii.  And  at  v.  259  of  the  same  play,  he 
remarks,  "  Persons  of  a  quiet  unintermeddling  disposition  in  Athens, 
had  but  one  of  three  resources  :  to  consent  to  be  despised  and 
trampled  on  ;  to  quit  the  place  altogether,  like  the  two  fugitives  in 
our  author's  *  Birds'  —  fyrovvre  rdrrov  Airpdynova  ;  or  to  console  them- 
selves with  a  quotation  from  some  satiric  comedian. 


j,  iav  v\  \ifff  f'rtpwv 

He  describes  them  elsewhere  (note,  *  Wasps?  1042)  as  '  that  small 
portion  of  the  Athenian  populace,  who,  shunning  law  and  politics, 
wished  to  pursue  quietly  their  own  occupations,'  and  when  the  Poet 
promises,  as  a  reward  for  the  virtuous  citizen,  the  odour  of  dirpayfioa^vij 
—  (*  Clouds,1  v.  1007,)  '  S$*v  Kai  fapaypofftviis'  Mr.  Mitchell  adds,  "  To 
live  in  the  odour  of  aTrpaypoovvri  at  Athens  must  have  been  almost  as 
fortunate  as  dying  in  the  odour  of  sanctity  in  the  papal  church." 

In  his  '  Introduction  to  the  Dialogues  of  Plato,'  Mr.  Sewell,  who 
has  no  disposition  to  extenuate  the  evils  of  the  Greek  democracies, 
says,  "  No  privacy  of  life,  no  innocence,  no  abstinence  from  public 
business,  (dirpaynovvvri,)  not  even  poverty,  could  guarantee  an  Athe- 
nian gentleman  in  the  land  of  liberty  from  being  dragged  at  any 
moment  before  a  tribunal  of  his  fellow-townsmen,  and  there  com- 
pelled to  plead  his  own  cause  in  person,  with  fines,  imprisonment, 
and  death,  staring  him  in  the  face  ;  and  neither  laws,  oaths,  evi- 
dence, nor  records,  affording  him  any  solid  ground  on  which  to  rest 
his  defence."  (Chap.  17.)  In  an  admirable  chapter  (the  32d)  in 
his  '  History  of  Greece,'  Bishop  Thirl  wall,  with  no  disposition  to 
magnify  the  evils  of  the  ancient  popular  systems,  shows  how  the 
retired  citizen  was  the  victim  of  judicial  persecution,  when  the 
government  was  deeply  corrupt,  the  tone  of  morals  low,  when  liti- 
gaion  was  an  epidemic  disease,  and  the  trade  of  the  informer  was 


TO    LECTURE    VI.  309 

rife  :  "  The  opulent  citizens  of  timid  natures  and  quiet  habits,  who 
were  both  unable  to  plead  for  themselves  and  shrank  from  a  public 
appearance,  were  singled  out  as  the  objects  of  attack  by  the  syco- 
phants who  lived  by  extortion."  .  .  .  .  "  Some  were  prevented  by 
timidity,  or  by  their  love  of  quiet,  or  by  want  of  the  talents,  or 
the  physical  powers  required  for  appearing  as  speakers  in  the  as- 
sembly, or  the  tribunals,  from  taking  a  part  in  public  business. 
Many,  irritated  or  disheartened  by  their  political  disadvantages, 
kept  sullenly  or  despondingly  aloof  from  the  great  body  of  theii 
fellow-citizens,  nourishing  a  secret  hatred  to  the  Constitution,  and 
anxiously  waiting  for  an  opportunity  of  overthrowing  it,  and  avenging 
themselves  for  past  injuries  and  humiliation."  It  is  of  the  judicial 
abuse  that  Xenophon  ('  Mem.  Soc.'  ii.  9)  represents  the  complaints 
of  Crito — a  citizen  wishing  to  mind  his  own  business,  '  /3owAo/«Vu> 
ra  eavrov  irpaTTetv,'  but  beset  by  the  informers,  who  thought  he  would 
pay  his  money  for  the  sake  of  a  quiet  life — $£mv  av  apyvptov  rcXtVai, 
9  Trpa'y/mra  2X£1I; :  Socrates  advises  defence  by  making  reprisals — by 
retaliating  in  the  way  of  '  information.' 

A  curious  expression  of  feeling  respecting  these  opposite  habits 
of  dnpaypoauvri  and  Tto^vTrpay/jto^vt}  occurs  in  a  fragment  of  the  Prologue 
to  Euripides's  '  Philoctetes  :'  the  words  are  in  the  mouth  of  Ulysses, 
whose  wisdom  is  reduced  apud  tragicos  from  the  epic  elevation  to 
sheer,  selfish  cunning — he  questions,  with  vexation,  his  own  claim  to 
the  character  of  sagacity,  considering  how  active  and  busy  he  had 
been,  when  he  might  have  fared  as  well  as  the  best,  and  yet  lived 
•  oTrpay/urfvuj.'  And  in  the  myth  which  Plato  introduces  at  the  close 
of  the  tenth  book  of  '  the  Republic,'  symbolizing  the  immortality  of 
the  soul  by  the  doctrine  of  transmigration,  the  soul  of  Ulysses  is 
represented  as  chancing  to  get  the  last  right  of  making  choice  of 
its  new  life,  but  remembering  its  former  toils,  and  having  lost  all 
ambition,  it  goes  about  for  a  long  while  in  search  of  the  life  of  a 
private  man,  who  kept  himself  from  public  affairs — &i6v  &v$pb$  ISiurov 
fapdynovos — and  when  at  last,  after  a  great  deal  of  difficulty,  it  found 
one;  lying  any  where  and  disregarded  by  every  other  soul  of  them, 
it  gladly  took  this  life  for  itself,  and  said  that  this  was  the  very 
thing  it  would  have  chosen,  if  it  had  had  the  first  choice.  The 
fable  seems  then  to  teach  that  a  life  of  airpaypoavvr]  was  so  rare  that 
only  one  could  be  found — so  little  valued  that  it  was  sought  foi 


310  NOTES 

only  by  one — and  that  one  the  last  chooser — and  th.it  choosei 
Ulysses,  of  all  souls  in  the  (other)  world ! 

The  aitpaynoafori  (or  airoA/r«a)  of  Socrates  was  of  another  and 
higher  kind  than  that  which  has  been  spoken  of.  He  was  with- 
held from  taking  his  part  in  the  Assembly  and  courts  by  the  in- 
timations of  his  D&mon,  (Plato,  Ap.  Soc.  ch.  19,)  and  because  lie 
believed  it  to  be  his  proper  vocation  to  prepare  others  for  perform- 
ing their  political  duties  with  intelligence  and  integrity.  And  this 
kind  of  fapaynootivTi  he  declared  was  such  an  object  of  admiration 
in  the  eyes  of  the  three  Judges  of  the  Dead,  that  when  they  en- 
countered the  soul  of  a  private  man — dvfylis  Wtwrow,  who  had  lived 
with  integrity  and  truth — or  especially  that  of  a  philosopher, 
who  had  heeded  his  own  business,  and  not  been  universally  and 

restlessly   Officious,  ra  alrov  irpd£avro$,  nal  ov  jroXuTrpay/iOvtfffavrof  (v  TU  (3iip, 

they  sent  it  applaudingly  to  the  "  Islands  of  the  Blest."  (Plato, 
'Gorgias,'  ch.  82.)  In  the  'Memorabilia,1  (book  iii.  ch.  11.)  Socra- 
tes is  represented  as  playfully  alluding  to  his  own  axpaynoavvr), 
(nriaicu>KT(av  T^V  alrou  atrpa-ynoa^v) — when  Theodota  (a  woman  whose 
morals  were  not  as  pure  as  her  name)  solicits  a  farther  conference, 
the  philosopher  replies,  that  no  leisure  is  left  him  by  his  public 
and  private  engagements — iSta  irpayftara  TroAAa  Kal  Stjudaia — meaning, 
however,  his  business  as  a  moral  teacher. 

The  habit  of  retirement  from  public  life  may,  therefore,  be  justi- 
fiable when  it  is  prompted  by  a  sense  of  higher  duty — by  the  con- 
viction that  it  may  give  to  a  man  better  opportunity  of  benefiting 
his  fellow-men — of  preserving  his  power  of  doing  good  to  his 
country  permanently.  It  may  give  rise  to  nice  questions  of  duty, 
especially  in  popular  governments,  where  every  citizen  has  his 
political  duties,  though  looking  at  them  perhaps  more  in  the  light 
of  privileges,  he  may  lose  the  sense  of  obligation  in  them.  The 
retirement,  instead  of  being  dutiful,  may  in  some  cases  be  proof 
rather  of  timidity,  of  effeminacy,  or  of  selfishness.  There  may  be 
a  shrinking  from  public  cares,  for  the  sake  of  gratifying  private 
indolence  or  pleasures,  or  from  sheer  indifference  to  national  con- 
cerns. Horace  Walpole  in  one  of  his  letters  tells  a  story  of  an 
English  squire,  who  went  out  with  his  hounds  during  the  battle  of 
Edgehill.  It  is  told  of  Goethe,  I  believe,  that  he  was  busy  study- 
ing Chinese  during  the  battle  of  Leipsic  :  he  is,  however,  vindica- 


TO    LECTURE    \f  31 1 

^d  by  his  admirers  from  the  imputation  of  indifference  to  national 
interests,  by  reference  to  his  indefatigable  zeal  in  the  arts  of  peace, 
aod  the  fidelity  to  his  high  functions  as  an  artist.  Another  form 
of  the  anpaynonvr),  excusable  at  least,  if  not  justifiable,  is  the  se- 
clusion from  political  life  that  has  become  desperately  vicious, 
though  there  is  higher  virtue  in  that  better  spirit  which,  whether 
in  hope  or  despair,  falters  not,  as  standing  "  ever  in  the  great  Task- 
master's eye" — such  dutifulness  as  Thirlvvall  in  his  History  (chap. 
32)  worthily  applauds  in  Nicias,  who,  "  though  he  saw  and  suffered 
from  the  defects  of  the  government,  served  his  country  zealously 
and  faithfully."  Let  me  only  add  to  a  note  which  has  already 
reached  too  great  a  length,  that,  on  the  subject  of  participation  in 
public  affairs  or  seclusion  from  them,  there  is  no  name  suggesting 
so  much  food  for  reflection  as  that  of  Milton.  There  is  much,  too, 
in  the  career  of  Walter  Scott,  and  in  the  animating  strains  that 
burst  from  Southey  and  from  Wordsworth,  in  their  mountain-homes, 
during  a  trying  period  of  their  country's  history. 

NOTE  17.— Page  286. 

"  Rumours  of  conspiracy  and  insurrection,  sometimes  false,  but 
gaining  credit  from  the  notorious  discontent,  both  of  the  old  com- 
monwealth's party  and  of  many  who  had  never  been  on  that  side, 
were  sedulously  propagated,  in  order  to  keep  up  the  animosity  of 
parliament  against  the  ejected  clergy  ;  and  these  are  recited  as  the 
pretext  of  an  act  passed  in  1664,  for  suppressing  seditious  conven- 
ticles, (the  epithet  being  in  this  place  wantonly  and  unjustly  insult- 
ing,) which  inflicted  on  all  persons  above  the  age  of  sixteen,  present 
at  any  religious  meeting  in  other  manner  than  is  allowed  by  the 
practice  of  the  Church  of  England,  where  five  or  more  persons 
besides  the  household  should  be  present,  a  penalty  of  three  months' 
imprisonment  for  the  first  offence,  of  six  for  the  second,  and  of  sev- 
en years'  transportation  for  the  third,  on  conviction  before  a  single 
justice  of  peace.  This  act,  says  Clarendon,  if  it  had  been  vig- 
orously executed,  would  no  doubt  have  produced  a  thorough  ref- 
ormation. Such  is  ever  the  language  of  the  supporters  of  tyranny  ; 
when  oppression  does  not  succeed,  it  is  because  there  has  been  too 
little  of  it.  But  those  who  suffered  under  this  statute  report  very 


312  NOTES 

differently  as  to  its  vigorous  execution.  The  gaols  were  filled,  not 
only  with  ministers  who  had  borne  the  brunt  of  former  persecutions, 
but  with  the  laity  who  attended  them ;  and  the  hardship  was  the 
more  grievous,  that  the  act  being  ambiguously  worded,  its  construc- 
tion was  left  to  a  single  magistrate,  generally  very  adverse  to  the 
accused. 

"  It  is  the  natural  consequence  of  restrictive  laws  to  aggravate 
the  disaffection  which  has  served  as  their  pretext ;  and  thus  to  cre- 
ate a  necessity  for  a  legislature  that  will  not  retrace  its  steps,  to 
pass  still  onward  in  the  course  of  severity.  In  the  next  session, 
accordingly,  held  at  Oxford  in  1665,  on  account  of  the  plague  thai 
ravaged  the  capital,  we  find  a  new  and  more  inevitable  blow  aimed 
at  the  fallen  church  of  Calvin.  It  was  enacted  that  all  persons  in 
holy  orders,  who  had  not  subscribed  the  act  of  uniformity,  should 
swear  that  it  is  not  lawful,  upon  any  pretence  whatsoever,  to  take 
arms  against  the  King ;  and  that  they  did  abhor  that  traitorous  po 
sition  of  taking  arms  by  his  authority  against  his  person,  or  against 
those  that  are  commissioned  by  him,  and  would  not  at  any  time  en- 
deavour any  alteration  of  government  in  church  or  state.  Those 
who  refused  this  oath,  were  not  only  made  incapable  of  teaching  in 
schools,  but  prohibited  from  coming  within  five  miles  of  any  city, 
corporate  town,  or  borough  sending  members  to  parliament." 

HALLAM'S  'Const.  History  of  England,'  vol.  ii.  472. 

*  *  "  After  the  Restoration,  Bunyan  was  one  of  the  first  persons 
who  was  punished  for  non-conformity.  The  nation  was  in  a  most 
unquiet  state.  There  was  a  restless,  rancorous,  implacable  party 
who  would  have  renewed  the  civil  war,  for  the  sake  of  again  trying 
the  experiment  of  a  Commonwealth,  which  had  so  completely  and 
miserably  failed  when  the  power  was  in  their  hands.  They  looked 
to  Ludlow  as  their  General ;  and  Algernon  Sidney  took  the  first 
opportunity  of  soliciting  for  them  men  from  Holland  and  money 
from  France.  The  political  enthusiasts  who  were  engaged  in  such 
schemes,  counted  upon  the  sectaries  for  support.  Even  among  the 
sober  sects  there  were  men  who  at  the  cost  of  a  rebellion  would 
gladly  have  again  thrown  down  the  Church  Establishment,  for  the 
hope  of  setting  up  their  own  system  during  the  anarchy  that  must 
ensue.  Among  the  wilder  some  were  eager  to  proclaim  King  Jesus, 


TO    LECTURE    VI  313 

and  take  possession  of  the  earth  as  being  the  Saints  to  whom  it 
was  promised  ;  and  some,  (a  few  years  later,)  less  in  hope  of  effect- 
ing their  republican  projects  than  in  despair  and  vengeance,  con- 
spired to  burn  London  :  they  were  discovered,  tried,  convicted,  and 
executed ;  they  confessed  their  intention ;  they  named  the  day 
which  had  been  appointed  for  carrying  it  into  effect,  because  an 
astrological  scheme  had  shown  it  to  be  a  lucky  one  for  this  design ; 
and  on  that  very  day  the  fire  of  London  broke  out.  In  such  times 
the  Government  was  rendered  suspicious  by  the  constant  sense  of 
danger,  and  was  led,  as  much  by  fear  as  by  resentment,  to  severi- 
ties which  are  explained  by  the  necessity  of  self-defence — not  jus- 
tified by  it,  when  they  fall  upon  the  innocent,  or  even  upon  the  less 

guilty." 

SOUTHEY'S  'Life  of  Bunyan.' 

37 


LECTURE  VII, 


IN  attempting  to  analyze  the  parties  of  our  history,  I  have 
purposely  omitted,  for  the  most  part,  the  names  of  the  indi- 
viduals who  headed  them.  By  so  doing  we  keep  the  subject 
clear  at  any  rate  of  mere  personalities,  and  avoid  shocking 
that  large  portion  of  our  political  feelings  which  consists  of  per- 
sonal likings  or  dislikings.  But  still  how  to  describe  even  the 
abstract  principles  of  two  parties  without  indicating  which  on 
the  whole  we  prefer,  I  confess  I  know  not.  For  these  prin- 
ciples are  so  closely  connected  with  points  of  moral  character, 
that  I  do  not  see  how  we  can  even  wish  to  be  indifferent  to 
them.  I  have  endeavoured  to  show  how  in  both  parties  they 
were  mixed  up  together,  partly  good  and  partly  evil,  and  if  I 
have  not  done  this  faithfully  in  point  of  fact,  then  my  state- 
ment is  so  far  partial  and  unjust.  But  that  certain  principles 
in  politics  are  in  themselves  good  as  the  rule,  and  that  others 
are  bad  as  the  rule,  although  not  perhaps  absolutely  without 
exception,  I  can  no  more  wish  to  doubt,  than  I  would  doubt 
in  reading  the  contest  between  Christianity  and  heathenism, 
on  which  side  lay  the  truth. 

Therefore  in  speaking  of  the  Revolution  of  1688,  I  can 
imply  no  doubt  whatever  as  to  its  merits.  I  grant  that,  de- 
scending to  personal  history,  we  should  find  principles  sadly 
obscured ;  much  evil  must  be  acknowledged  to  exist  in  one 
party,  much  good  or  much  that  claims  great  allowance  on 


316  LECTURE    VII. 

the  other.  But  to  doubt  as  to  the  character  of  the  Revolution 
itself,  is  to  doubt  as  to  the  decision  of  two  questions,  which 
speaking  to  Englishmen,  and  to  members  of  the  church  of 
England,  I  have  no  right,  as  I  certainly  have  no  inclination, 
to  look  upon  as  doubtful.  I  have  no  right  to  regard  it  as 
doubtful,  whether  our  present  constitution  be  not  better  than 
a  feudal  monarchy ;  and  whether  the  doctrine  and  discipline 
of  our  protestant  church  of  England  be  not  truer  and  better 
than  those  of  the  church  of  Rome.  (1) 

We  will  suppose  then  the  Revolution  accomplished.  King 
William  and  Queen  Mary  seated  on  the  throne ;  the  Bill  of 
Rights  and  the  Toleration  Act  passed ;  England  and  Scotland 
mostly  at  peace  under  the  government  of  King  William  ;  the 
party  of  King  James  still  predominant  in  Ireland.  What 
were  now  the  principal  parties  in  the  kingdom,  and  what 
were  their  objects  ? 

With  one  king  on  the  throne  in  England  and  Scotland,  and 
with  another  ruling  in  Ireland,  and  trying  to  recover  the 
throne  of  Great  Britian  also,  the  main  question  at  issue,  and 
one  to  which  all  others  were  necessarily  subordinate,  was 
the  maintenance  or  the  overthrow  of  the  Revolution.  Judg- 
ing from  the  extraordinary  fact  that  the  Revolution  had  been 
effected  almost,  literally  speaking,  without  bloodshed,  we 
should  have  expected  that  the  nation  would  have  been  almost 
unanimous  in  supporting  it.  But  the  debates  in  the  conven- 
tion which  had  preceded  the  recognition  of  William  had  made 
it  plain  that  this  was  not  the  case ;  and  as  every  month 
which  James  passed  in  exile  weakened  the  impression  of  his 
faults  and  increased  the  pity  for  his  misfortunes,  so  his  cause 
after  the  Revolution  gained  strength  rather  than  lost  it.  The 
party  which  had  been  foremost  in  placing  William  on  the 
throne,  united  in  itself  all  the  remains  of  the  ancient  puritans, 
and  of  all  those  who  had  formed  the  popular  party  in  Charles 
the  Second's  time,  together  with  many  of  those  persons  who 


LECTURE    VII.  317 

are  the  great  disgrace  of  this  period  of  our  history,  persons 
who  joined  either  party  from  motives  of  interest  or  ambition, 
when  their  opinions  led  them  naturally  the  other  way.  The 
motto  of  all  this  party  may  be  said  to  have  been  civil  and  re- 
ligious liberty;  their  object  was  the  maintenance  of  the 
power  of  parliament,  and  through  it  of  the  liberty  of  the  sub- 
ject ;  the  putting  down  popery,  and  the  allowing  liberty  of 
worship  to  those  dissenters  who  differed  from  the  church  on 
points  of  government  or  discipline.  Beyond  this,  as  is  well 
known,  the  notion  of  religious  liberty  was  not  then  carried  : 
and  it  is  remarkable,  that  at  this  very  time  an  act  of  parlia- 
ment was  passed  making  the  profession  of  unitarianism  in  all 
its  forms  penal ;  so  that  it  was  not  popery  only  which  remain- 
ed exposed  to  the  severities  of  the  law. 

The  party  opposed  to  the  one  just  described,  contained 
within  itself  two  remarkable  divisions,  which  practically 
made  such  a  difference  as  to  constitute  rather  two  distinct 
parties.  For  although  both  divisions  looked  upon  the  Revo- 
lution with  dislike,  yet  one  of  them  having  a  sincere  love  for 
the  real  protestant  doctrine  of  the  church  of  England,  re- 
garded the  return  of  a  Roman  Catholic  king  as  a  greater  evil 
than  the  maintenance  of  the  Revolution  ;  and  besides,  a  large 
proportion  of  these,  like  the  better  part  of  the  Royalists  in 
the  civil  war,  were  no  friends  to  absolute  monarchy,  and 
wished  the  parliament  to  exist,  and  to  be  powerful.  The 
other  party,  or  division  of  the  party,  whichever  we  choose  to 
call  it,  was  anxious  at  any  risk  to  restore  James ;  the  nominal 
protestants  among  them  being  in  fact  at  the  best  such  men 
as  Lord  Falkland  had  described  in  his  days  as  labouring  to 
bring  in  an  English  though  not  a  Roman  popery,  men  whose 
whole  sympathies  were  with  the  Romish  system  in  doctrine 
and  ritual,  though  they  had  not  yet  resolved  to  place  the 
head  of  their  church  at  Rome.  Their  political  principles 
were  as  highly  Ghibelin  as  their  religious  were  Guelf :  the 

27* 


318  LECTURE    VII 

divine  right  and  indefeasible  authority  of  kings  stood  in  their 
belief  side  by  side  with  the  divine  right  and  indefeasible  au- 
thority of  priests ;  and  had  these  two  powers  again  come  into 
conflict,  half  of  the  Jacobites  probably  would  have  stood  by 
the  one,  and  half  by  the  other. 

Under  these  circumstances  the  maintenance  of  the  Revo- 
lution was  no  doubt  effected  by  this,  that  so  far  one  division 
of  the  antipopular  party  went  along  with  their  opponents. 
But  this  was  not  only  owing  to  the  sincere  and  zealous  pro- 
testantism of  this  division  ;  it  was  owing  also  to  another  point, 
which,  whether  we  call  it  the  wisdom  or  the  happiness  of  the 
Revolution,  is  at  any  rate  one  of  its  greatest  excellencies  and 
best  lessons  for  all  after  ages.  I  mean  that  the  Revolution 
preserved  the  monarchy,  with  all  its  style  and  dignity  un- 
touched :  it  made  William  king,  and  not  protector.  The 
great  seal  was  the  same,  the  national  colours  remained  the 
same,  all  writs  ran  in  the  same  terms,  all  commissions  were 
in  the  same  form ;  as  far  as  all  the  common  business  of  life 
was  concerned,  it  was  simply  like  the  accession  of  a  new 
king  in  natural  succession,  whose  name  was  William  instead 
of  James.  Now  this  is  not  a  little  matter.  In  France  some 
years  since  the  outward  signs  of  Revolution  were  visible 
everywhere  :  old  names  of  streets  were  hastily  painted  over, 
and  might  still  be  traced  through  the  new  names  which  had 
been  written  upon  them  :  on  all  government  offices,  and  on 
many  shops  and  other  buildings  the  fresh  colour  of  the  word 
royale  showed  that  it  had  been  but  recently  substituted  for 
imperiakj  as  that  had  a  little  before  succeeded  to  nationak. 
By  all  this  the  continuity  of  a  nation's  life  is  broken,  and  the 
deep  truth  conveyed  in  those  beautiful  lines  of  Mr.  Words- 
worth,— 

M  The  child  is  father  of  the  man, 
And  I  would  wish  my  days  to  be, 
Bound  each  to  each  by  natural  piety  t" 


LECTURE    VII.  319 

&  truth  almost  more  important  to  be  observed  by  nations  than 
by  individuals,  is  unhappily  neglected.  (2)  But  it  is  the 
blessing  of  our  English  history  that  its  days  are  thus  bound 
each  to  each  by  natural  piety :  the  child  has  been  the  father 
of  the  man.  And  thus  the  old  loyalist,  whose  watchword  was 
church  and  king,  saw  that  after  the  Revolution  no  less  than 
before,  the  church  and  king  were  left  to  him  :  the  church 
untouched  in  its  liturgy,  in  its  articles,  in  its  government,  in 
its  secular  dignity,  and  in  its  wealth  :  the  king  sitting  on  the 
throne  of  his  predecessors,  unchanged  in  semblance,  un- 
changed in  the  possession  of  his  legal  prerogatives  :  still  the 
sovereign  of  a  kingdom,  and  not  merely  the  first  magistrate 
in  the  commonwealth.  Nor  can  we  doubt  that  this  operated 
powerfully  to  reconcile  men's  minds  to  the  settlement  of  the 
Revolution,  theirs  especially  who  are  influenced  mainly  by 
what  strikes  them  outwardly,  and  wno  found  that  the  outward 
change  was  so  little. 

The  outward  change  was  little,  and  yet  what  was  gained 
by  the  Revolution  and  by  the  Act  of  Settlement  which  was 
passed  a  few  years  afterwards,  was  in  importance  incalcula- 
ble. The  reigning  sovereign  was  bound  to  the  cause  of  free 
and  just  government,  by  the  consideration  that  his  title  to  the 
crown  rested  on  no  other  foundation  ;  that  there  was  a  com- 
petitor in  existence  whose  right  on  high  monarchical  principles 
was  preferable  to  his  own.  Now,  as  the  whole  temptation 
of  kings  must  necessarily  be  to  magnify  their  own  authority, 
any  thing  which  counteracts  this  tendency  in  them  must  be 
good  alike  for  their  people  and  for  themselves.  And  this 
was  the  case,  except  during  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne,  from 
the  Revolution  to  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century ;  if  the 
king  forgot  the  principles  of  the  Revolution,  he  condemned 
himself  and  denied  his  own  title  to  the  throne.  Nor  was  it  a 
little  thing  to  have  established  once  for  all  as  the  undoubted 
doctrine  of  the  constitution,  that  the  rule  of  hereditary  sue- 


320  LECTURE    VII. 

cession,  like  all  others,  admits  occasionally  of  exceptions ; 
rare,  indeed, — it  is  to  be  desired  that  they  should  be  very 
rare,— one  or  two  scattered  up  and  down  in  the  history  of 
centuries, — but  yet  clear  and  undoubted,  and  to  the  full  as 
legitimate  when  they  do  occur  as  the  rule  which  they  set 
aside.  The  exception  made  at  the  Revolution  and  confirmed 
by  the  Act  of  Settlement  is  in  force  to  this  very  hour  ;  for  I 
need  not  say  that  if  the  rule  of  hereditary  succession  be  in 
all  cases  binding,  the  house  of  Brunswick  is  at  this  moment 
usurping  the  rights  of  the  houses  of  Savoy  or  of  Modena ;  for 
the  princes  of  the  house  of  Brunswick  are  descended  only 
from  a  daughter  of  James  the  First,  and  except  by  virtue  of 
the  Act  of  Settlement  they  could  not  succeed  to  the  throne 
whilst  the  heirs  of  a  daughter  of  Charles  the  First  were  still 
living  ;  and  such  heirs  exist,  I  believe,  in  more  than  one  royal 
house  in  Italy ;  to  maintain  whose  rights  to  the  British  crown 
would  be,  notwithstanding,  treason. 

A  few  years  after  the  Revolution,  King  James's  party  was 
utterly  put  down  in  Ireland,  and  the  three  kingdoms  were 
united  under  the  authority  of  King  William.  The  conquest 
of  Ireland,  for  such  it  might  almost  be  called,  was  followed 
by  that  famous  penal  code  against  the  Roman  Catholics, 
which  was  designed  to  keep  them  for  ever  in  a  state  of  sub- 
jection and  humiliation.  It  is  curious  to  observe  one  of  the 
most  oppressive  of  all  codes  enacted  by  a  popular  party, 
whose  watchword,  as  I  have  said,  was  civil  and  religious  lib- 
erty. It  is  curious,  yet  ought  not  for  a  moment  to  puzzle 
any  one  who  is  familiar  with  ancient  history.  The  democ- 
racy of  Athens  put  to  death  a  thousand  Mytilenseans  of  the 
oligarchical  party,  and  confiscated  the  lands  of  the  whole 
people.  The  injustice  of  the  Athenian  dominion  over  Lesbos 
may  be  questioned,  or  we  may  complain  of  the  excessive 
severity  of  their  treatment  of  the  Mytilenseans ;  but  not  surely 
of  its  inconsistency  with  a  sincere  love  of  democratical  prin- 


LECTURE   VII.  321 

ciples  of  government.  For  the  Mytilenseans  in  the  one  case, 
like  the  Irish  Catholics  in  the  other,  had  been  the  declared 
enemies  of  the  popular  cause ;  the  one  in  Athens,  the  other 
in  England  :  and  their  treatment  was  that  of  vanquished  en- 
emies and  rebels,  not  of  citizens.  And  as  after  the  Myti* 
lensean  revolt  the  people  of  Methymna  were  alone  regarded 
by  the  Athenians  as  the  free  inhabitants  of  Lesbos  ;  so  the 
Irish  protestants  were  regarded  by  the  English  as  the  only 
Irish  people  :  the  Roman  Catholics  were  looked  upon  alto 
gether  as  an  inferior  caste.  The  whole  question,  in  fact, 
relates  to  the  treatment  of  enemies  or  subjects,  and  not  to  that 
of  citizens :  and  unjust  wars  or  conquests  or  dominions  are 
not  more  inconsistent  with  a  popular  government  than  with 
any  other :  because  the  popular  principle  is  understood  to  be 
maintained  only  with  regard  to  those  within  the  common- 
wealth, and  not  to  those  who  are  without.  They  are  not 
more  inconsistent  with  one  form  of  government  than  another, 
but  I  hope  I  shall  not  be  supposed,  therefore,  to  deny  their 
guilt;  that  remains  the  same,  and  is  not  affected  by  the 
question  of  consistency  or  inconsistency. 

Greek  history  will  enable  us  also  to  comprehend  the  feel- 
ings with  which  the  popular  and  antipopular  parties  respect- 
ively regarded  the  great  French  war.  The  popular  party 
felt  towards  France  as  the  same  party  in  Athens  regarded 
Lacedaemon ;  not  merely  as  towards  a  national  rival,  but  as 
towards  a  political  enemy,  who  was  leagued  with  their  polit- 
ical enemies  at  home  to  effect  the  overthrow  of  their  actual 
free  constitution.  And  as  Thucydides*  says  of  the  aristo- 
cratical  party  of  the  Four  Hundred,  that  although  they  would 
have  been  glad  to  have  preserved,  if  possible,  the  foreign 
dominion  and  the  political  independence  of  Athens,  yet  they 
were  ready  to  sacrifice  these  to  Sparta  rather  than  fall  under 

*  VIII.  91. 


322  LECTURE    VII. 

the  power  of  their  own  democracy ;  (3)  so  we  can  under, 
stand  what  otherwise  would  be  incredible  and  monstrous,  the 
desertion  of  the  alliance,  the  putting  Ormona  into  Marlbo- 
rough's  place,  and  the  separate  negotiations  with  France  in 
1713.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  enmity  of  the  popu- 
lar party  was  directed  not  against  France  nationally,  but 
against  the  supporter  of  their  domestic  enemies,  was  shown 
by  the  friendly  relations  which  subsisted  between  the  two 
countries  in  the  reign  of  George  the  First,  when  Philip  of  Or- 
leans  was  at  the  head  of  the  French  government,  and  France 
was  no  longer  in  league  with  the  partisans  of  James.  The 
war  which  afterwards  broke  out  in  1740,  appears  to  have 
arisen  solely  from  national  and  European  causes ;  and  the 
support  which  the  French  then  afforded  to  the  insurrection 
of  1745,  was  merely  given  as  an  effectual  means  of  annoying 
a  foreign  enemy,  and  diverting  the  attention  of  the  English 
from  the  great  military  struggle  in  the  Netherlands.  Ac- 
cordingly, we  do  not  find  that  any  party  in  England  regard- 
ed France  with  favour  in  that  war,  or  complained  of  the 
government  except  for  a  want  of  vigour  and  ability  in  their 
military  and  naval  operations. 

The  cause  of  the  Revolution  in  France  never  at  any  time, 
1  believe,  was  otherwise  than  popular  with  the  poorer  classes; 
the  peasantry  no  less  than  the  poor  of  the  towns  were,  with 
a  few  local  exceptions,  such  as  La  Vendee  and  Bretagne,  its 
zealous  supporters.  In  England  it  was  otherwise ;  the 
strength  of  the  friends  of  the  Revolution  lay  in  the  middle 
classes,  in  the  commercial  class,  and  in  the  highest  class  of 
the  aristocracy ;  the  lower  class  of  the  aristocracy,  the  cler- 
gy, and  the  poorer  classes,  were  ranged  together  on  the  op- 
posite side.  The  main  cause  of  this  difference  is  to  be  four/1 
in  the  fact  that  the  French  Revolution  was  social  quite  as 
much  as  political :  (4)  ours  was  political  only.  The  aboli- 
tion of  the  Seigneurial  dominion  in  France,  and  the  making 


LECTURE    VII.  323 

all  Frenchmen  equal  before  the  law,  were  benefits  which  the 
poorest  man  felt  daily :  but  the  English  Revolution  had  only 
settled  great  constitutional  questions — questions  of  the  utmost 
importance,  indeed,  to  good  government,  and  affecting  in  the 
end  the  welfare  of  all  classes  of  the  community,  but  yet 
working  indirectly,  and  in  their  first  and  obvious  character 
little  concerning  the  poor;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
wars  which  followed  the  Revolution  had  led  to  an  increased 
taxation.  To  this  it  must  be  added,  that  the  mere  populace 
is  at  all  times  disposed  to  dislike  the  existing  government,  be 
it  what  it  will :  and  as  the  popular  party  retained  the  govern- 
ment in  its  hands  for  many  years,  the  habitual  feeling  against 
all  governments  happened  to  turn  against  them.  In  country 
parishes  the  peasantry  went  along  with  the  country  gentle- 
men and  clergy  from  natural  feelings  of  attachment ;  feelings 
which  distress  had  not  as  yet  shaken :  while  the  town  popu- 
lace, and  the  country  populace  also,  so  far  as  they  knew 
them,  disliked  the  dissenters  both  socially  and  morally  ;  so- 
cially, from  the  same  feeling  which  at  this  moment  makes  it 
easier  to  excite  the  populace  against  the  great  manufacturers 
than  against  the  old  nobility :  jealousy,  namely,  against  those 
nearer  to  themselves  in  rank,  yet  raised  by  circumstances 
above  them ;  and  morally,  from  a  dislike  of  their  strictness 
and  religious  profession  :  the  same  feeling  which  urged  the 
mob  to  persecute  the  first  Methodists,  and  which  is  curiously 
blended  with  the  social  feeling.  For  religious  language, 
even  when  amounting  to  rebuke  of  ourselves,  is  borne 
more  readily,  to  say  the  least,  when  it  proceeds  from  those 
who  seem  authorized  to  use  it.  Thus  it  gives  less  offence 
when  coming  from  a  clergyman  than  from  a  layman ;  and  to 
a  poor  man  it  comes  more  naturally  from  one  whom  he  feels 
to  be  his  superior  in  station,  than  from  one  more  nearly  his 
equal.  Partly  in  connection  with  this,  is  the  greater  tolera- 
tion shown  by  the  Roman  world  to  the  Jews  than  to  the 


324  LECTURE    VII. 

Christians  ;  the  Jews  seemed  to  have  a  right  to  believe  in  ona 
God,  because  it  was  their  national  religion  ;  but  what  right 
had  one  Roman  citizen  to  pretend  to  be  wiser  than  his  neigh- 
bours, and  to  profess  to  worship  one  God,  because  that  and 
that  alone  was  the  truth  ?  From  such  feelings,  good  and  bad 
together,  the  populace  in  Queen  Anne's  reign,  and  in  that 
which  followed,  were  generally  averse  to  the  dissenters  and 
the  popular  party,  and  friendly  to  the  clergy,  and  to  the  par- 
ty opposed  to  the  Revolution. 

Meanwhile  years  passed  on,  and  the  house  of  Hanover  was 
firmly  seated  on  the  throne  ;  on  the  death  of  George  the  First 
his  son  George  the  Second  succeeded  him  without  the  slight- 
est opposition ;  a  larger  portion  of  the  clergy,  and  a  very 
large  majority  of  the  nation  had  learnt  not  only  to  acquiesce 
in,  but  to  approve  heartily  of  the  principles  of  the  Revolu- 
tion; the  victory  of  civil  and  religious  liberty,  as  it  was 
called,  was  completely  won.  Now,  then,  considering,  as  I 
have  said  before,  that  we  have  a  right  to  ask  for  the  fruits  of 
liberty,  just  as  we  may  ask  for  the  fruits  of  health;  (for 
while  we  are  ill  we  give  up  our  whole  attention  to  the  getting 
the  better  of  our  sickness ;  and  health  is  then  reasonably  our 
great  object ;  but  when  we  are  well,  if  instead  of  using  our 
health  to  do  our  duty,  we  go  on  idly  talking  about  its  excel- 
lence, and  think  of  nothing  but  its  preservation,  we  become 
ridiculous  valetudinarians;)  even  so,  having  a  right  to  de- 
mand of  men,  when  their  liberty  is  secured,  what  fruits  they 
have  produced  with  it,  let  us  even  put  this  question  to  the 
triumphant  popular  party  of  the  eighteenth  century.  And 
if  we  hear  no  sufficient  answer,  but  only  a  mere  repetition  of 
phrases  about  the  excellence  of  civil  and  religious  liberty, 
then  we  shall  do  well  not  indeed  to  fall  in  love  with  the  anti- 
popular  party,  and  say  that  sickness  is  better  than  health,  but 
to  confess  with  shame  that  the  popular  party  has  neither 
practised  nor  understood  its  duty  ;  that  they  laboured  well 


LECTURE    VII.  325 

to  clear  the  ground  for  their  building,  but  when  it  was  cleared 
they  built  nothing. 

Here  seems  to  me  to  be  the  great  fault  of  the  last  century  : 
as  in  the  eyes  of  many  it  is  its  great  excellence ;  that  it  was 
for  letting  things  alone.  (5)  In  some  respects,  indeed,  it 
stopped  its  own  professed  work  too  soon ;  for  trade  was  not 
free,  but  burdened  with  a  great  variety  of  capricious  restric- 
tions :  sinecure  places,  and  these  granted  in  reversion,  were 
exceedingly  numerous :  the  press,  had  the  disposition  of  the 
government  been  jealous  of  it,  was  still  greatly  at  its  mercy  ; 
for  as  yet  it  remained  with  the  judges  only  to  decide  whether 
a  publication  was  or  was  not  libellous :  the  business  of  the 
jury  was  merely  to  decide  on  the  fact,  whether  the  defendant 
had  published  it.  (6)  But  with  regard  to  institutions  of  the 
greatest  importance,  the  neglect  was  extreme.  The  whole 
subject  of  criminal  law  and  prison  discipline  was  either  left 
alone,  or  touched  only  for  mischief.  The  state  of  the  prisons, 
both  physically  and  morally,  was  as  bad  as  it  had  been  in 
the  preceding  century ;  the  punishment  of  death  was  multi- 
plied with  a  fearful  indifference  ;  education  was  everywhere 
wanted,  and  scarcely  anywhere  to  be  found.  Persons  are  now 
living  who  remember  the  old  state  of  things  in  this  univer- 
sity, when  a  degree  might  be  gained  without  any  reading  at 
all :  and  the  introduction  of  Sunday  schools  is  also  within  living 
memory.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  attention  should  not 
have  been  turned  immediately  to  these  and  many  other  points ; 
but  still  the  principle  of  the  age  had  no  tendency  to  them  :  in 
political  and  ecclesiastical  matters  the  work  had  been  so  long 
to  get  rid  of  what  was  bad,  that  it  seemed  to  be  forgotten  that 
it  was  no  less  important  to  build  up  what  was  good ;  and 
men's  positive  efforts  seemed  to  run  wholly  in  another  direc- 
tion, towards  physical  and  external  advancement.  (7) 

Then  there  arose  in  England,  for  I  am  now  looking  no  far. 
thor,  a  new  form  of  political  party.  It  is  well  known  thai 

28 


326  LECTURE    VII. 

the  administration  of  the  first  William  Pitt  was  a  period  of 
unanimity  unparalleled  in  our  annals ;  popular  and  antipop- 
ular  parties  had  gone  to  sleep  together :  the  great  ministei 
wielded  the  energies  of  the  whole  united  nation  ;  France  and 
Spain  were  trampled  in  the  dust ;  protestant  Germany  saved  j 
all  North  America  was  the  dominion  of  the  British  crown ; 
the  vast  foundations  were  laid  of  our  empire  in  India.  (8) 
Of  almost  instantaneous  growth,  the  birth  of  two  or  three 
years  of  astonishing  successes,  the  plant  of  our  power  spread 
its  broad  and  flourishing  leaves  east  and  west,  and  half  the 
globe  rested  beneath  its  shade.  Yet  the  worm  at  its  root  was 
not  wanting.  Parties  awoke  again,  one  hardly  knows  how 
or  why,  and  their  struggle  during  the  early  part  of  the  reign 
of  George  the  Third  was  of  such  a  character,  that  after  study- 
ing it  attentively,  we  turn  from  it  as  from  a  portion  of  history 
equally  anomalous  and  disagreeable.  Yet  its  uninstructive- 
ness  in  one  sense  is  instructive  in  another ;  and  1  will  venture 
to  call  your  attention  to  that  period  in  which  the  most  promi- 
nent names — alas  !  for  the  degraded  state  of  English  party — 
are  those  of  John  Wilkes  and  of  Junius. 

For  the  first  time  for  nearly  fifty  years  the  king  was  sup- 
posed to  be  disinclined  to  the  principles  of  the  Revolution ; 
the  great  popular  minister,  Pitt,  had  resigned,  and  the  minis- 
ter who  was  believed  to  be  the  king's  personal  favourite, 
was  believed  also  to  be  strongly  attached  to  the  principles 
of  the  old  antipopular  party.  (9)  These  circumstances,  to- 
gether with  some  dissatisfaction  at  what  were  called  the  in- 
adequate terms  of  the  peace  with  France  and  Spain,  revived 
party  feelings  in  a  portion  of  the  community  with  much 
warmth.  (10)  The  press  became  violent,  and  Wilkes's  famous 
attack  on  the  king's  speech  in  No.  45  of  the  North  Briton, 
drew  down  a  prosecution  from  the  government.  He  happened 
at  that  time  to  be  a  member  of  the  house  of  commons ;  and 
the  house  expelled  him.  I  will  not  detain  you  with  the  detail 


LECTURE    VII.  327 

of  his  case ;  it  is  enough  to  say  that  having  been  elected  as 
member  for  Middlesex  after  his  expulsion,  the  house  of  com- 
mons  would  not  allow  him  to  sit :  and  when  he  again  offered 
himself  as  a  candidate,  and  had  obtained  an  enormous  ma- 
jority of  votes  over  his  competitor,  the  house  of  commons 
nevertheless  resolved  that  his  competitor  was  duly  elected, 
and  he  took  his  seat  for  Middlesex  accordingly. 

The  striking  point  in  this  new  state  of  parties  cannot  fail 
to  have  attracted  your  notice:  namely,  that  the  house  of 
commons  is  no  longer  on  the  popular  but  on  the  antipopular 
side ;  and  that  the  popular  party  speaks  no  longer  by  the 
voice  of  any  legally  constituted  authority,  but  by  that  of  in- 
dividuals, self-appointed  to  the  service,  and  through  the  press. 
This  was  a  great  change,  and,  as  I  think,  a  change  in  some 
respects  for  the  worse.  But  it  is  very  important  to  dwell 
upon,  because  it  is  the  result  of  a  natural  law,  and  therefore 
is  constantly  to  be  looked  for,  unless  steps  are  taken  to  pre- 
vent it.  We  have  noticed  an  instance  of  the  same  thing  in 
our  religious  Reformation ;  no  sooner  had  the  leaders  of  the 
English  church  make  good  their  cause  against  Rome,  than 
they  became  engaged  in  disputes  with  their  own  followers 
who  wanted  to  carry  on  the  Reformation  still  farther.  But 
what  was  a  reformation  yesterday  is  become  an  establish- 
ment to-day ;  and  the  reformer  of  yesterday  is  to-day  the 
defender  of  an  establishment,  opposed  in  his  turn  to  those 
who  by  wishing  for  farther  reformation  necessarily  assail  the 
reformation  already  effected.  So  when  the  house  of  commons 
had  established  the  ascendancy  of  parliament  against  the 
crown,  and  through  that  ascendancy  had  no  doubt  secured 
also  the  liberties  of  the  nation,  they  naturally  stopped  and 
thought  that  their  work  was  done.  Besides,  for  the  last  fifty 
years  the  crown  had  headed  the  popular  party,  and  the  efforts 
which  the  popular  leaders  had  made,  through  the  influence 
of  the  crown,  to  secure  a  majority  against  the  influence  of 


328  LECTURE    VII, 

their  opponents,  had  thus  been  all  directed,  whatever  be 
thought  of  the  means  used,  towards  securing  the  triumph  of 
popular  principles,  the  principles,  that  is,  of  the  Revolution. 
Things  were  wonderfully  changed,  when  the  crown  was  sup. 
posed  to  have  gone  over  to  the  opposite  side,  and  when  its  in- 
fluence was  acting  in  concurrence  with  that  very  party  whicii 
it  had  long  been  accustomed  to  combat.  The  popular  party 
therefore  no  longer  had  the  majority  of  the  commons  in  its  fa- 
vour; but  on  the  contrary  received  from  the  house  of  commons 
its  immediate  reproof.  Now  while  the  house  clearly  led  the 
popular  cause,  its  acts  of  authority  excited  no  ill  will ;  soldiers 
will  bear  any  strictness  of  discipline  from  officers  whom  they 
thoroughly  trust,  and  who  are  in  the  habit  of  leading  them  on 
to  victory.  But  let  it  be  once  whispered  that  these  officers 
are  traitors,  or  that  they  are  even  lukewarm  and  inefficient 
merely  against  the  enemy,  and  any  severity  of  discipline  is 
then  resented  as  tyranny.  So  it  was  with  the  popular  party 
out  of  doors,  when  the  house  of  commons,  now  as  they  thought 
inclined  to  the  interest  of  their  opponents,  began  to  set  up 
their  power  of  expulsion  as  controlling  the  elective  fran- 
chise of  their  constituents.  The  representatives  were  thus 
placed  in  opposition  to  their  constituents,  as  the  antipopular 
party  opposed  to  the  popular :  but  the  constituents  were  no 
legally  organized  body ;  they  were  undistinguished,  except 
by  their  right  of  voting,  from  the  whole  mass  of  the  nation ; 
nor  was  there  in  existence  any  constitutional  power  lower 
than  the  house  of  commons,  which  in  this  new  struggle  might 
be  against  the  house  of  commons  itself  what  that  house  had 
formerly  been  against  the  crown.  The  corporation  of  Lon- 
don attempted  to  supply  this  want,  but  in  vain :  it  could  not 
pretend  to  be  a  national,  but  merely  a  local  body ;  and  London 
has  never  exercised  such  an  influence  over  the  country,  as 
that  the  chief  magistrate  of  London  should  be  recognised  as 
the  popular  leader  of  England.  The  popular  party  then,  as 


LECTURE    VII.  329 

I  have  said  before,  having  no  official  organ,  spoke  as  it  best 
could  through  self-appointed  individuals,  and  through  the 
press.  (11) 

This  changed  state  of  things  is  one  with  which  we  are 
very  familiar :  a  strong  popular  party  out  of  parliament,  and 
that  great  power  of  the  public  press,  which  with  much  truth 
as  well  as  humour  has  been  called  the  fourth  estate  of  the 
realm,  are  two  of  the  most  prominent  features  of  these  later 
times.  Both  undoubtedly  have  their  evils,  but  both  are  the 
natural  and  unavoidable  consequence  of  the  changed  position 
of  the  house  of  commons  on  one  side,  and  of  the  growth  of  the 
mass  of  the  nation  in  political  activity  on  the  other.  For 
there  being,  as  I  have  said,  no  lower  constitutional  body 
which  could  be  the  heart  as  it  were  of  the  popular  party, 
now  that  the  house  of  commons  had  ceased  to  be  so,  it  was  a 
matter  of  plain  necessity  that  the  opposition  should  be  car- 
ried  on  from  the  ranks  of  the  people  itself,  in  aid  of  that 
portion  of  the  house  of  commons  which  upheld  the  same 
principles,  but  was,  within  the  walls  of  parliament,  a  minor- 
ity. And  as  for  the  press,  reading  in  our  climates  so  natu- 
rally takes  the  place  of  hearing,  and  is  so  indispensable  where 
the  state  is  not  confined  within  the  walls  of  a  single  city  but 
is  spread  over  a  great  country,  that  it  could  not  but  increase 
in  power  as  the  number  of  those  who  took  an  interest  in  pub- 
lic affairs  became  daily  greater.  True  it  is  that  its  power, 
as  actually  exercised,  was  liable  to  enormous  abuse.  The 
writers  in  the  public  journals  were  anonymous,  and  although 
the  printer  and  publisher  were  legally  responsible  for  the 
contents  of  their  papers,  yet  the  bad  tendencies  of  anonymous 
writing  are  many  more  than  the  severest  law  of  libel  can  re- 
press. The  best  of  us,  I  am  afraid,  would  be  in  danger  of 
writing  more  carelessly  without  our  names  than  with  them. 
We  should  be  tempted  to  weigh  our  statements  less,  putting 
forward  as  true  what  we  believe  indeed,  but  have  no  sufficient 

28* 


330  LECTURE    VII. 

grounds  for  believing,  to  use  sophistical  arguments  with  less 
scruple,  to  say  bitter  and  insulting  things  of  our  adversaries 
with  far  less  forbearance.  But  then  the  writers  for  the  pub- 
lie  journals  have  the  farther  disadvantage  of  always  writing 
hastily,  and  in  many  instances  of  writing  for  their  bread,  sc 
that  whatever  other  qualities  their  articles  may  have  or  not 
have,  it  is  necessary  that  they  should  be  such  as  will  make 
the  paper  sell.  Again,  a  journal  is  a  property ;  like  other 
property  it  may  be  bequeathed,  bought,  and  sold,  and  may 
thus  pass  into  hands  totally  indifferent  to  all  political  princi- 
ples, and  only  anxious  to  make  the  property  profitable.  In- 
stead of  guiding  public  opinion,  such  a  proprietor  will  think 
it  better  policy  to  follow  it  and  encourage  it ;  well  knowing 
that  to  praise  and  agree  with  a  man's  opinions  is  a  surer  way 
of  pleasing  him  than  to  attempt  to  teach  him  better.  Even 
where  this  is  not  the  case,  and  a  journal  is  honestly  devoted 
to  the  maintenance  of  a  certain  set  of  political  principles,  yet 
the  writers  in  it,  over  and  above  the  disadvantages  already 
noticed,  of  haste  and  of  writing  anonymously,  are  many  times 
persons  ill  fitted  by  education  or  by  station  in  society  to  form 
the  wisest  judgments  on  political  questions;  they  have  not 
knowledge  sufficient  to  be  teachers.  All  this  is  true ;  and 
journalism  accordingly  has  pandered  abundantly  to  men's 
evil  passions,  has  misled  the  public  mind,  many  times,  instead 
of  leading  it  aright.  And  farther,  there  is  always  a  danger 
that  popular  principles,  when  advocated  spontaneously  by 
individuals,  and  not  by  a  regular  constitutional  body,  should 
become  somewhat  in  excess,  should  respect  actual  institutions 
too  little,  and  should  savour  too  much  of  individual  extrava- 
gance or  passion.  So  that  it  would  be  an  enormous  evil  if 
ever  the  popular  party  in  the  house  of  commons  was  so  weak, 
that  the  main  stress  of  the  contest  should  be  carried  on  out 
of  parliament,  by  speakers  at  public  meetings  or  by  the  press. 
There  is  no  question  that  something  of  this  evil  was  felt  in 


LECTURE    VII.  331 

the  lattei  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  .  too  much  devolved 
on  the  popular  party  out  of  doors  and  on  the  press,  because 
of  the  vast  superiority  of  the  antipopular  party  in  parliament. 
But  with  all  the  evils  of  a  political  press,  the  question  still 
recurs,  What  should  we  be  without  it  ?  Or  how  would  it  be 
possible  otherwise  to  satisfy  the  natural  desire  of  an  active- 
minded  people,  to  know  the  state  of  their  own  affairs  ?  And 
there  is  no  question  that  reading  is  a  less  exciting  process 
than  hearing ;  sophisms  read  quietly  in  our  own  house  are 
less  likely  to  mislead,  than  when  commended  by  the  eloquence 
of  a  popular  speaker  and  the  sympathy  of  a  vast  multitude, 
his  hearers :  what  there  is  of  mischief  does  less  harm,  while 
what  there  is  of  true  information  is  better  digested  and  better 
remembered.  Again,  whatever  of  sophistry  and  virulence 
there  is  in  the  public  journals,  yet  this  is  partly  neutralized 
as  to  its  effects  by  their  opposition  to  each  other ;  and  while 
we  allow  for  the  existence  of  those  faults,  it  is  impossible  to 
deny  that  the  consequence  of  the  system  of  extreme  publicity 
is  to  communicate  a  great  mass  of  real  information,  that  the 
truth  after  all  is  more  widely  known  and  with  less  scandal- 
ous corruptions  than  it  could  be  under  any  other  system  con- 
ceivable. 

The  evil  of  the  public  journals  of  the  eighteenth  century 
was  that  of  the  political  writing  of  the  time  generally,  and  it 
arose  out  of  that  fault  to  which  I  have  already  alluded,  when 
I  said  that  the  mere  notion  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  was 
too  exclusively  worshipped  by  the  popular  party,  to  the  neg- 
lect of  the  moral  end  which  lay  beyond  it.  And  this  unhappy 
separation  of  politics  from  morals,  and  from  the  perfection  of 
morals,  Christianity,  was  by  no  means  peculiar  to  the  popu- 
lar party,  nor  to  the  eighteenth  century ;  its  causes  lay 
deeper,  and  their  consequences  have  been  but  too  durable. 
In  this  respect,  the  existence  of  a  church  which  was  sup- 
posed to  include  the  whole  nation  within  its  pale,  and  to  take 


332  LECTURE    VII. 

effectual  care  of  their  highest  interests,  was  in  some  respects 
absolutely  mischievous,  when  that  church  in  practice  was  in- 
efficient and  disorganized.  For  as  if  the  state  were  thus  re- 
lieved from  all  moral  responsibility,  it  took  less  care,  by  its 
own  regulations,  for  the  moral  excellence  of  its  magistrates, 
than  was  taken  by  many  a  heathen  commonwealth.  The 
Roman  censors  expelled  from  the  senate  any  man  of  scan- 
dalous life  ;  and  though  their  sentence  was  reversible,  yet  a 
judicium  lurpe,  or  being  found  guilty,  by  a  court  of  law,  of 
any  one  out  of  a  great  variety  of  specified  disgraceful  offen- 
ces, deprived  a  man  of  his  political  privileges  irrevocably ; 
he  lost  even  his  vote  as  a  member  of  the  comitia.  (12)  How 
different  was  the  state  of  feeling  in  England,  was  but  too 
clearly  shown  in  the  dispute  as  to  the  re-election  of  Wilkes, 
after  the  house  of  commons  had  expelled  him.  Politically, 
the  subsequent  decision  of  the  house  of  commons,  which  is 
now  considered  to  have  settled  the  question,  seems  perfectly 
just :  the  choice  of  a  representative  seems  to  belong  to  his 
constituents,  within  the  bounds  fixed  by  law ;  and  the  judg- 
ment of  his  fellow  representatives  against  him  is  not  so 
much  to  the  purpose  as  the  renewed  decision  of  those  who  are 
more  immediately  concerned,  given  in  his  favour.  (13)  Yet 
was  the  scandal  extreme  when  a  man  of  such  moral  charac- 
ter as  Wilkes  was  made  a  popular  leader,  and  when  a  great 
political  principle  seemed  involved  in  choosing  him  to  be  a 
legislator.  True  it  is  that  the  opposite  party  had  no  right  to 
complain  of  him,  for  the  candidate  whom  they  supported 
against  him  was  in  moral  character  nothing  his  superior ;  it 
is  a  curious  fact  that  both  were  members  together  in  private 
life  of  that  scandalous  society  whose  meetings  at  Medmen- 
ham  Abbey,  between  Henley  and  Marlow,  were  the  subject 
at  the  time  of  many  a  disgraceful  story.  (14)  But  it  was  and 
is  one  of  the  evils  of  our  state,  that  personal  infamy  is  no  bar 
to  the  exercise  of  political  rights ;  that  a  man  may  walk  out 


LECTURE    VII.  333 

of  jail  and  take  his  seat  in  the  highest  places,  even  as  a 
legislator.  And  this  same  moral  insensibility  makes  us  tole- 
rate the  defects  of  the  press  in  these  points,  when  we  sympa- 
thize with  it  politically ;  because  we  are  all  accustomed  too 
much  to  separate  moral  and  political  matters  from  each 
other  ;  one  party  thinking  of  liberty  only,  and  another  of  au- 
thority ;  but  each  forgetting  what  is  the  true  fruit  and  object 
of  both. 

**  As  Wilkes  was  one  of  the  worst  specimens  of  a  popular 
leader,  so  was  Junius  of  a  popular  political  writer.  One  is 
ashamed  to  think  of  the  celebrity  so  long  enjoyed  by  a  pub- 
lication so  worthless.  No  great  question  of  principle  is  dis- 
cussed in  it ;  it  is  remarkable  that  on  the  subject  of  the 
impressment  of  seamen,  which  is  a  real  evil  of  the  most  se- 
rious kind,  and  allowed  to  be  so  even  by  those  who  do  not 
believe  that  it  is  altogether  remediable,  Junius  strongly  de- 
fends the  existing  practice.  All  the  favourite  topics  of  his 
letters  are  purely  personal  or  particular;  his  appeals  are 
never  to  the  best  part  of  our  nature,  often  to  the  vilest.  If 
I  wished  to  prejudice  a  good  man  against  popular  principles, 
I  could  not  do  better  "than  to  put  into  his  hands  the  letters  of 
Junius.  (15) 

But  I  have  dwelt  too  long  on  this  period  of  our  history, 
and  must  hasten  to  conclude  this  sketch.  The  disputes 
about  Wilkes's  election  were  soon  lost  in  a  far  greater  mat- 
ter, the  contest  with  America.  In  that  contest  the  questions 
of  our  own  former  history  were  virtually  reproduced ;  for  it 
is  quite  manifest  that  the  British  parliament  stood  to  the 
American  colonies  in  precisely  the  same  relation  in  which 
the  crown  had  formerly  stood  towards  the  people  of  Eng- 
land ;  every  argument  for  or  against  ship-money  might  have 
been  pleaded  for  and  against  the  Stamp  Act.  This  Lord 
Chatham  clearly  perceived,  and  so  far  he  was  in  agreement 
with  the  rest  of  the  popular  party.  His  opposition  to  the  in- 


334  LECTURE    VII. 

dependence  of  the  colonies  belonged  to  the  personal  charao 
ter  of  the  man,  to  his  invincible  abhorrence  of  yielding  to 
the  house  of  Bourbon,  to  his  natural  unwillingness  to  divide 
that  great  American  empire  which  his  administration  had 
founded.  But  he  struggled  against  a  law  altogether  distinct 
from  the  question  about  taxation,  a  law  of  nature  herself, 
which  makes  distance  an  insuperable  obstacle  to  political 
union ;  and  when  the  time  arrives  at  which  a  colony  is  too 
great  to  be  dependent,  distance  making  union  impossible  with 
a  mother  country  at  the  end  of  the  earth,  the  only  alterna- 
tive is  complete  separation.  (16) 

In  the  various  contests  which  followed,  to  the  end  of  the 
century,  the  character  of  the  popular  party  remained  pretty 
nearly  the  same  :  its  object  might  still  be  said  to  be  civil  and 
religious  liberty ;  the  difference  was  that  these  objects  were 
now  often  contended  for  for  the  sake  of  others,  with  whom 
Englishmen  had  no  personal  connection.  And  so  paramount 
are  political  principles,  when  they  seem  really  at  stake,  to 
any  national  sympathies  or  antipathies,  that  at  the  end  of  the 
century  the  feelings  of  our  two  great  political  parties  with 
regard  to  France  were  exactly  reversed  from  what  they  had 
been  at  the  beginning  of  it,  because  France  was  become  the 
representative  of  exactly  opposite  political  principles.  With 
perfect  consistency  therefore  did  the  popular  party  deprecate 
and  the  antipopular  party  support  the  war  with  France  in 
1793,  as  in  1703  the  antipopular  party  had  opposed  it,  and 
the  popular  party  had  been  zealous  in  its  favour.  (17) 

It  marks  also  the  truth  of  the  description  which  I  gave  of 
the  later  movement  of  Europe,  calling  it  the  political,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  religious  movement  of  the  preceding 
period,  that  political  consistency  led  parties  to  alter  their 
feelings  towards  the  same  religious  party ;  the  popular  party 
being  zealous  to  undo  that  very  penal  code  which  their  polit- 
ical ancestors  had  imposed  on  the  Roman  Catholics  of  Ireland, 


LECTURE    VII.  335 

the  antipopular  party  on  the  other  hand  vigorously  maintain- 
ing  it.  Neither  party  were  in  the  least  inconsistent  with 
their  inherent  political  principles ;  and  the  religious  feelings 
which  in  the  case  of  the  Roman  Catholics  had  a  century  ear- 
lier modified  the  political  feeling,  were  now  on  both  sides 
greatly  weakened. 

The  struggle  then  in  this  latter  period  of  modern  history, 
so  far  as  England  has  been  concerned,  may  be  called  a 
struggle  for  civil  and  religious  liberty  ;  understanding  liberty 
in  a  perfectly  neutral  sense,  and  not  as  a  deliverance  from 
evil  and  unjust  restraint,  but  from  restraint  simply.  And 
taking  the  word  in  this  meaning,  it  seems  to  me  that  the 
statement  cannot  be  disputed,  that  the  object  of  one  party 
during  the  eighteenth  century  was  to  unloose,  the  object  of 
the  other  to  hinder  such  unloosing ;  it  being  a  distinct  ques- 
tion whether  the  bands  thus  sought  to  be  taken  off  or  retained, 
were  just  or  unjust,  useful  or  mischievous.  And  I  think  -it 
is  also  certain  that  this  object  in  the  preceding  period  of 
modern  history  was  combined  with  another  of  a  more  specific 
character,  namely,  the  attainment  of  religious  truth,  which 
was  on  both  sides  a  more  positive  object  than  the  simply  un- 
loosing or  holding  fast,  and  one  more  certainly  to  be  called 
good. 

What  has  been  exemplified  from  our  own  history,  holds 
true  I  think  no  less  with  respect  to  Europe  at  large.  Un- 
questionably whatever  internal  movement  there  has  been  on 
the  continent  since  1648,  has  been  predominantly  political  ; 
undoubtedly  also  the  object  of  that  movement  has  been  gen- 
erally to  unloose,  to  remove  certain  restraints  external  or 
internal  ;  and  the  object  of  those  opposed  to  that  movement 
has  been  to  maintain  these  restraints  or  to  add  to  them. 

It  would  appear  that  this  view  of  the  question  will  enable 
us  easily  enough  to  account  for  the  disappointment  with 
which,  whatever  be  our  political  opinions,  we  must  rise  from 


336  LECTURE    VII. 

the  study  of  this  period  of  political  movement.  Disappoint- 
ment, because  evils  great  and  unquestioned  still  exist  abun- 
dantly, evils  which  both  parties  have  failed  to  prevent.  Those 
who  advocate  the  side  of  the  movement,  when  taunted  with 
the  little  good  which  has  resulted  from  their  political  suc- 
cesses, besides  being  at  issue  with  their  opponents  as  to  the 
amount  of  good  produced,  might  fairly  acknowledge  that  the 
movement  was  essentially  defective,  that  its  object  ought  not 
to  have  been  merely  negative,  that  although  to  do  away  evil 
and  unjust  restraints  is  good,  yet  that  our  views  should  be 
carried  much  farther  ;  we  are  unjust  to  our  own  work  if  we 
take  no  care  that  liberty  shall  be  to  all  men's  eyes  the  mother 
of  virtue.  And  on  the  other  hand  they  who  sympathize  with 
the  party  which  strove  to  hold  fast  the  restraints,  if  they  say 
that  the  mischief  has  resulted  wholly  from  their  own  defeat, 
are  yet  required  to  account  for  the  very  fact  of  that  defeat ; 
and  they  too  may  acknowledge  that  to  restrain  a  child  or  to 
confine  a  lunatic  is  not  all  that  their  cases  need  :  that  re- 
straint is  but  a  means  no  less  than  liberty ;  and  that  when 
man  exercises  it  upon  man,  he  is  bound  to  show  that  it  is  a 
means  to  work  the  good  of  the  person  restrained,  or  else  it  is 
an  injustice  and  a  sin.  Now  it  is  past  all  doubt  that  the 
antipopular  party,  both  religious  and  political,  have  here 
greatly  failed  ;  considering  the  people  as  children,  they  have 
restrained  the  child,  but  they  have  not  educated  him  ;  con- 
sidering them  even  as  lunatics,  they  have  confined  the  luna- 
tic, but  have  often  so  irritated  him  with  their  discipline  as 
to  make  his  paroxysms  more  violent  and  more  incurable. 

Farther  also,  as  to  the  judgment  we  should  form  of  the 
struggle  of  the  last  three  centuries,  it  is  manifest  that  it  de- 
pends in  some  measure  on  our  judgment  of  the  centuries 
preceding  them.  If  all  was  well  in  those  preceding  centuries, 
the  movement,  whether  religious  or  political,  must  have  been 
undesirable  ;  for  certainly  all  is  not  well  now.  If  all  was  ill 


LECTURE    VII.  337 

in  those  preceding  centuries,  then  certainly  the  movement 
has  been  a  great  blessing ;  for  our  present  state  is  blessed 
with  very  much  of  good.  But  it  was  neither  all  well  nor  all 
ill ;  so  much  the  most  superficial  knowledge  may  teach  us  : 
the  question  to  decide  our  judgment  is,  whether  it  was  ill  or 
well  predominantly. 

In  most  other  places  it  would  be  considered  extraordinary 
to  represent  such  a  question  as  doubtful  for  a  moment.  But 
here  there  is  always  a  tendency  to  magnify  the  past :  five- 
and-twenty  years  ago  I  can  remember  that  it  was  the  fashion 
to  exalt  the  seventeenth  century  at  the  expense  of  the  eigh- 
teenth :  now  I  believe  many  are  disposed  to  depreciate  both, 
and  to  reserve  their  admiration  for  times  still  more  remote, 
and  more  unlike  our  own.  It  is  very  well  that  we  should  not 
swim  with  the  stream  of  public  opinion :  places  like  this  are 
exceedingly  valuable  as  temples  where  an  older  truth  is  still 
worshipped,  which  else  might  have  been  forgotten  :  and  some 
caricature  of  our  proper  business  must  at  times  be  tolerated,  for 
such  is  the  tendency  of  humanity.  But  still  if  we  make  it  our 
glory  to  run  exactly  counter  to  the  general  opinions  of  our  age, 
making  distance  from  them  the  measure  of  truth,  we  shall  at 
once  destroy  our  usefulness  and  our  real  respectability.  And 
to  believe  seriously  that  the  movement  of  the  three  last  cen- 
turies has  been  a  degeneracy ;  that  the  middle  ages  were 
wiser,  or  better,  or  happier  than  our  own,  seeing  truth  more 
clearly  and  serving  God  more  faithfully ;  would  be  an  error 
so  extravagant  that  no  amount  of  prejudice  could  excuse  us 
for  entertaining  it.  (18) 

It  has  been  my  object  in  this  and  in  my  last  lecture  to  ex- 
emplify from  that  history  which  is  most  familiar  to  us  all,  the 
method  of  historical  analysis ;  by  which  we  endeavour  to 
discover  the  key  as  it  were  to  the  complicated  movement  of 
the  world,  and  to  understand  the  real  principles  of  opposite 
parties  amidst  much  in  their  opinions  and  conduct  that  is 

39 


$38  LECTURE    VII. 

purely  accidental.  I  believe  that  the  result  of  the  analysis 
now  made,  is  historically  correct ;  if  it  be  u:herwise,  I  have 
managed  the  experiment  ill,  and  it  has  failed  m  this  particu- 
lar instance  ;  but  the  method  itself  is  no  less  the  true  one,  and 
you  have  only  to  conduct  it  more  carefully  in  order  to  make 
it  completely  answer.  In  a  brief  review  of  a  period  of  three 
centuries,  I  have  made  so  many  omissions  that  my  sketch 
may  seem  to  be  superficial  •  and  I  grant  that  this  is  always 
the  danger  to  be  apprehended  in  our  generalizations,  and  one 
which  when  speaking  of  a  period  so  busy  it  is  not  easy  to 
avoid.  To  be  acquainted  with  every  existing  source  of  in- 
formation illustrative  of  the  last  three  centuries  is  of  course 
physically  impossible,  while  human  life  is  no  longer  than  it 
is :  the  only  question  is,  or  else  all  our  reading  must  be  use- 
less, whether  by  a  tolerably  large  and  comprehensive  study 
of  a  variety  of  sources  we  may  not  gain  a  notion  substantially 
correct,  which  a  still  more  extensive  study,  if  such  were  prac- 
ticable, would  confirm  and  enrich,  but  would  not  materially 
alter. 

What  I  have  now  attempted  to  do  briefly  for  a  long  and 
very  busy  period,  I  shall  endeavour  to  do  next  year,  if  God 
shall  permit,  at  greater  length  for  a  shorter  period,  namely, 
for  the  fourteenth  century.  Whoever  has  already  made  that 
period  his  study,  or  shall  do  so  in  the  course  of  this  year,  may 
find  it  not  uninteresting  to  compare  the  result  of  his  inquiries 
with  mine,  and  if  he  shall  learn  any  thing  from  me  he  may 
be  sure  also  that  he  might  impart  something  to  me  in  return, 
of  which  I  was  ignorant.  For  in  this  wide  field  there  is  full 
work  for  many  labourers,  and  it  is  my  hope  that  many  of  us 
may  thus  co-operate,  and  by  our  separate  researches  collect 
what  no  one  man  could  have  collected  alone.  In  the  mean 
while,  my  next  and  last  lecture  will  be  devoted  to  one  or 
two  more  general  matters ;  such  particularly  as  the  criteria 
of  historic  credibility,  a  question  naturally  of  great  import- 


LECTURE    VII.  339 

ance,  because  unless  we  can  discriminate  between  a  credible 
testimony  and  a  suspicious  one,  we  shall  never  be  able  to 
avoid  the  evil  either  of  unreasonable  scepticism  or  of  unrea- 
sonable credulity.  And  the  result  of  such  an  inquiry  will 
be  what  we  could  most  wish  ;  that  there  is  an  historical  truth 
attainable  by  those  who  truly  desire  it,  however  easily  and 
indeed  inevitably  missed  by  the  unfair  or  even  the  careless 
historian,  whatever  may  be  his  external  advantages.  This 
question,  with  one  or  two  points  connected  with  it,  will  be 
almost  more  than  sufficient  to  occupy  the  time  which  we  shall 
be  able  to  afford  to  them. 


NOTES 


LECTURE    VII 


NOTE  1.— Page  316. 

Coleridge  has  spoken  of  "  the  revolution"  as  "wise  and  ne- 
cessitated confirmation  and  explanation  of  the  law  of  England, 
erroneously  entitled  the  English  Revolution  0/1688." — '  The  Friend,' 
iii.  p.  130 ;  and  again,  in  the  'Table  Talk?  ii.  p.  172  :  "  The  great 
reform  brought  into  act  by  and  under  William  the  Third,  combined 
the  principles  truly  contended  for  by  Charles  the  First  and  his 
Parliament  respectively." 

NOTE  2.— Page  319. 

*  "  It  is  the  misfortune  of  France  that  her  *  past'  cannot  be 
loved  or  respected ;  her  future  and  her  present  cannot  be  wedded 
to  it ;  yet  how  can  the  present  yield  fruit,  or  the  future  have  prom- 
ise, except  their  roots  be  fixed  in  the  past  *\  The  evil  is  infinite, 
but  the  blame  rests  with  those  who  made  the  past  a  dead  thing,  out 
of  which  no  healthful  life  could  be  produced." 

'Life  and  Correspondence,'  Appendix  C,  x.  7. 

In  his  'Vindication  of  Niebuhr's  History,'  Archdeacon  Hare 
quotes  the  following  passage  from  thejirst  edition,  with  the  remark 
that  in  it  "  the  author  seems  almost  to  have  snatched  a  feather  out 
of  Burke's  plumage :" 

"  Notwithstanding  that  they  established  the  festival  of  the  Regi- 
fugium,  and  abolished  the  name  of  King  for  ever,  the  Romans 
were  very  far  from  looking  back  with  any  ferocity  of  hatred  at  the 
times  of  their  monarchal  government.  The  statues  of  the  Kings, 
that  of  the  last  Tarquinius  himself,  it  would  seem  among  the  rest, 


NOTES    TO    LECTURE    VII  341 

were  preserved,  and  probably  even  multiplied ;  their  laws  and  insti- 
tutions in  civil  as  well  as  ceremonial  matters  were  maintained  in 
full  force.  The  change  in  the  constitution  did  not  at  first  go  beyond 
this  single  branch ;  and  never  did  it  enter  the  heads  of  the  Romans 
to  beggar  themselves  of  their  rich  inheritance  of  laws  and  recol- 
lections. It  was  reserved  for  our  days  to  see  the  fruits  of  that 
madness,  which  led  our  fathers,  with  an  unexampled  kind  of  arro- 
gance, to  brand  themselves  falsely  with  being  a  degraded  and  slav- 
ish race,  at  the  same  time  that  they  falsely  asserted  they  were 
called  to  an  unparalleled  degree  of  perfection ;  of  that  madness 
which  bragged  it  would  form  a  new  earth  by  demolishing  the  old 
one  :  only  once  has  the  world  beheld — and  we  have  been  the  spec- 
tators— universal  contempt  invoked  upon  the  whole  of  the  past,  and 
people  proud  of  the  title  of  slaves  broken  loose.  Something  similar, 
indeed,  and  attended  with  similar  results,  had  been  experienced  in 
religious  revolutions :  the  protestant  communities  have  cast  away 
the  saints  and  fathers  of  the  church,  and  they  have  not  done  so  with 
impunity :  it  has  been  the  same  in  the  revolutions  of  science  and 
literature.  On  the  other  hand,  the  lessons  of  all  experience  teach 
us,  that  a  nation  cannot  possess  a  nobler  treasure  than  the  unbroken 
chain  of  a  long  and  brilliant  history.  It  is  the  want  of  this  that 
makes  all  colonies  so  sickly.  Those  of  the  Greeks  indeed  seldom 
cut  off  their  recollections  altogether  from  the  root  of  their  mother 
city :  modern  colonies  have  done  so  :  and  this  unnatural  outrage 
has  perhaps  operated  still  more  than  other  circumstances  to  plunge 
them  into  a  state  of  incorrigible  depravity." 

NOTE  3.— Page  322. 

This  was  the  feeling  when  Theramenes  separated  from  the  oli- 
garchical party  that  had  set  up  the  government  of  the  '  Four  Hun- 
dred,' and  just  before  the  counter-revolution  which  overturned  it, 
when  Phrynichus  was  assassinated,  in  the  92d  Olympiad,  A.  C. 
411.  The  words  of  Thucydides  referred  to  are — "eKtivoi  yup  ptftiera 

v  ^U/'^"%WJ')  £*  ^  /^>  T«f  T£  vavs  xal  rd 
tie  Kal  TOVTOV  ///)  ovv  VTTO  TUV  bi'mov  ys  aiiQis 

ywoptvov    avTol  Trpo   T&V   aXXwv  //dXiora  fitaQQaptjvai,  aXXa    KOI    rvvg 
t'ffayay<fy/£i'ot  avsv  rci"x,S>v  Kal  vs&v  ^u/*/3^»at  K 
vs  a'ji>naai  a&Zv  aSsia  cVrat." 

20* 


342  NOTES 


NOTE  4.— Page  322. 

Speaking  of  Arthur  Young's  Travels  in  France,  Dr.  Arnold 
writes :  "  He  shows  how  deadly  was  the  hatred  of  the  peasantry 
towards  the  lords,  and  how  in  1789  the  chateaux  were  destroyed 
and  the  families  of  the  gentry  insulted  from  a  common  feeling  of 
hatred  to  all  who  had  made  themselves  and  the  poor  two  orders, 
and  who  were  now  to  pay  the  penalty  of  having  put  asunder  what 

God  had  joined." 

'Life  and  Correspondence?  Letter  Dec.  24, 1830. 


NOTE  5.— Page  325. 

A  forcible  illustration  of  the  evils  of  the  false  *  Conservatism'  in- 
volved in  the  maxim  Dr.  Arnold  is  alluding  to,  is  given  by  a  writer 
in  a  late  number  of  the  ' English  Review?  (Dec.  1844.)  He  speaks 
of  "an  oracular  maxim  most  usually  expressed  in  the  French  lan- 
guage, France  having  been  the  scene  of  its  most  prodigal  applica- 
tion. Laissez  faire  are  the  words  of  potency  which,  from  one  gen- 
eration to  another,  have  formed  the  chief  trust  and  confidence  of 
rulers,  and  statesmen,  and  economists.  .  .  .  Still,  for  the  most  part, 
revolution  is  one  legitimate  result  of  the  long  and  undisturbed  pre- 
dominance of  laissez  faire.  Witness  that  terrific  convulsion,  act- 
ually seen,  throughout  the  whole  course  of  its  development,  by 
many  men  now  living,  and  which  made  History  stand  aghast  at  the 
sore  and  frightful  task  which  it  has  laid  upon  her.  For  what  was 
that  explosion  but  the  inevitable  issue  of  a  thousand  years  of  sel- 
fish, ignorant,  heartless,  and  we  might  justly  add,  godless  non-inter- 
ference. A  considerable  portion  of  the  preceding  century  more 
especially,  was  the  very  riot  and  revelry  of  the  grand  master-prin- 
ciple of  lLet  alone.1  Its  influence  pervaded  all  ranks  of  the  com- 
munity. Let  the  philosophers  and  atheists  write  and  talk  as  they 
list ;  let  the  wits  point  slanderous  epigrams  and  licentious  vers  de 
societe  ;  let  the  court  dance  minuets,  give  petits  soupers ;  let  the 
King  quarrel  with  his  parliaments,  and  take  the  occasional  diversion 
of  a  lettre  de  cachet ;  above  all,  let  his  majesty  provide  himself 
with  that  one  thing  needful,  a  pare  aux  cerfs  ;  and  all  this  while,  let 
tk  people  live  as  they  please  and  as  they  can  !  What  could  be  more 


TO    LECTURE    VII.  343 

captivating  than  the  seeming  liberality  of  this  very  comfortable  doc- 
trine 1  And  yet,  some  how  or  other  it  proved,  after  all,  to  be  a 
most  destructive  imposture.  It  was  truly  remarked  by  Charles 
Fox,  that  the  government  and  aristocracy  of  France  seemed  to 
have  been  long  smitten  by  it,  with  a  judicial  infatuation.  They 
had  eyes,  and  would  not  see  ;  they  had  ears,  and  would  not  hear. 
They  were  surrounded  with  degraded  and  almost  famishing  mil- 
lions, but  they  would  behold  nothing  but  princes  and  nobles.  At 
length  the  measure  of  iniquity  was  complete.  The  phials  of  wrath 
were  filled  to  the  very  brim  ;  and  at  the  fated  moment  their  fury 
was  poured  out.  The  issue  is  known  to  all.  First,  the  sans-culot- 
terie,  with  its  September  massacres,  and  its  reign  of  terror  ;  then 
the  conscription,  and  the  empire  ;  and  lastly,  all  Europe  on  the 
verge  of  ruin  !"  —  Vol.  ii.  p.  257. 

NOTE  G^Pae  325, 


*  *  "Meanwhile  the  judges  naturally  adhered  to  their  estab- 
lished doctrine  ;  and  in  prosecutions  for  political  libels  were  very 
little  inclined  to  favour  what  they  deemed  the  presumption,  if  not 
the  licentiousness  of  the  press.  They  advanced  a  little  farther 
than  their  predecessors  ;  and,  contrary  to  the  practice  both  before 
and  after  the  revolution,  laid  it  down  at  length  as  an  absolute  prin- 
ciple, that  falsehood,  though  always  alleged  in  the  indictment,  was 
not  essential  to  the  guilt  of  the  libel  ;  refusing  to  admit  its  truth  to  be 
pleaded,  or  given  in  evidence,  or-  even  urged  by  way  of  mitigation 
of  punishment.  But  as  the  defendant  could  only  be  convicted  by 
the  verdict  of  a  jury,  and  jurors  both  partook  of  the  general  senti- 
ment in  favour  of  free  discussion,  and  might  in  certain  cases  have 
acquired  some  prepossessions  as  to  the  real  truth  of  the  supposed 
libel,  which  the  court's  refusal  to  enter  upon  it  could  not  remove, 
they  were  often  reluctant  to  find  a  verdict  of  guilty  ;  and  hence 
arose  by  degrees  a  sort  of  contention,  which  sometimes  showed 
itself  upon  trials,  and  divided  both  the  profession  of  the  law  and  the 
general  public.  The  judges  and  lawyers  for  the  most  part,  main- 
tained that  the  province  of  the  jury  was  only  to  determine  the  fact 
of  publication  ;  and  also  whether  what  are  called  the  inuendoes 
were  properly  filled  up,  that  is,  whether  the  libel  meant  that  which 


344  KOTL'S 

it  was  alleged  in  the  indictment  to  mean,  not  whether  such  mean- 
ing were  criminal  or  innocent,  a  question  of  law  which  the  court 
were  exclusively  competent  to  decide.  That  the  jury  might  acquit 
at  their  pleasure  was  undeniable ;  but  it  was  asserted  that  they 
would  do  so  in  violation  of  their  oaths  and  duty,  if  they  should  re- 
ject the  opinion  of  the  judge  by  whom  they  were  to  be  guided  as 
to  the  general  law.  Others  of  great  name  in  our  jurisprudence, 
and  the  majority  of  the  public  at  large,  conceiving  that  this  would 
throw  the  liberty  of  the  press  altogether  into  the  hands  of  the 
judges,  maintained  that  the  jury  had  a  strict  right  to  take  the  whole 
matter  into  their  consideration,  and  determine  the  defendants'  crim- 
inality or  innocence  according  to  the  nature  ?>f  the  circumstances 
of  the  publication.  This  controversy,  which  perhaps  hardly  arose 
within  the  period  to  which  the  present  work  relates,  was  settled  by 
Mr.  Fox's  libel  bill  in  1792.  It  declares  the  right  of  the  jury  to 
find  a  general  verdict  upon  the  whole  matter;  and  though,  from 
causes  easy  to  explain,  it  is  not  drawn  in  the  most  intelligible  and 
consistent  manner,  was  certainly  designed  to  turn  the  defendant's 
intention,  as  it  might  be  laudable  or  innocent,  seditious  or  malignant, 
into  a  matter  of  fact  for  their  inquiry  and  decision." 

HALLAM'S  Const.  Hist.  vol.  iii.  p.  229. 

NOTE  7.— Page  325. 

"  *  *  In  many  parts  of  Europe  (and  especially  in  our  own  coun- 
try) men  have  been  pressing  forward  lor  some  time,  in  a  path 
which  has  betrayed  by  its  fruitfulness ;  furnishing  them  constant 
employment  for  picking  up  things  about  their  feet,  when  thoughte 
were  perishing  in  their  minds.  While  Mechanic  Arts,  Manufac- 
tures, Agriculture,  Commerce,  and  all  those  products  of  knowledge 
which  are  confined  to  gross,  definite,  and  tangible  objects,  have, 
with  the  aid  of  Experimental  Philosophy,  been  every  day  putting 
on  more  brilliant  colours ;  the  splendour  of  the  Imagination  has 
been  fading :  Sensibility,  which  was  formerly  a  generous  nursling 
of  rude  Nature,  has  been  chased  from  its  ancient  range  in  the  wide 
domain  of  patriotism  and  religion,  with  the  weapons  of  derision, 
by  a  shadow  calling  itself  Good  Sense  :  calculations  of  presumptu- 
ous Expediency — groping  its  way  among  partial  and  temporary 


TO    LECTURE    VII.  345 

consequences — have  been  substituted  for  the  dictates  of  paramount 
and  infallible  Conscience,  the  supreme  embracer  of  consequences  : 
lifeless  and  circumspect  Decencies  have  banished  the  graceful  neg- 
ligence and  unsuspicious  dignity  of  Virtue."  p.  164  of  Words- 
worth's Tract  '•  On  the  Convention  of  Cmira?  written  in  1808—9 — 
which  Southey,  at  the  time  of  the  publication,  justly  said  was  "  in 
that  strain  of  political  morality  to  which  Hutchinson,  and  Milton, 
and  Sidney,  could  have  set  their  hands."  Though  composed  only 
as  an  occasional  pamphlet,  it  abounds  with  admirable  and  abiding 
political  wisdom,  uttered  with  fervid  eloquence.  Never  having 
been  reprinted,  it  has  become  very  rare. 


NOTE  8. — Page  326. 

"  Such  then  were  the  principal  foreign  transactions  of  the  year  1759 
— the  most  glorious,  probably,  that  England  ever  yet  had  seen.  That 
it  was  the  most  glorious  was  apparently  proclaimed  or  acknowledged 
by  all  parties  at  the  time,  nor  will  History  find  much  to  detract 
from  that  contemporary  praise.  In  Asia,  Africa,  America,  Europe, 
by  land  and  sea,  our  arms  had  signally  triumphed.  Every  ship  from 
India  came  fraught  with  tidings  of  continued  success  to  the  British 
cause.  In  January  we  received  the  news  of  the  capture  of  Goree, 
in  June,  of  the  capture  of  Guadaloupe.  In  August  came  the  tidings 
of  the  victory  at  Minden,  in  September,  of  the  victory  off  Lagos, 
in  October,  of  the  victory  at  Quebec,  in  November,  of  the  victory 
at  Quiberon.  '  Indeed,'  says  Horace  Walpole,  in  his  lively  style, 
'  one  is  forced  to  ask  every  morning  what  victory  there  is,  for  fear 
of  missing  one  !'  Another  contemporary,  Dr.  Hay,  exclaimed,  in 
no  liberal  spirit  of  triumph,  that  it  would  soon  be  as  shameful  to 
beat  a  Frenchman  as  to  beat  a  woman  !  With  better  reason  we 
might  have  claimed  to  ourselves  the  arrogant  boast  of  the  Span- 
iards only  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  before,  that  there  were  not 
seas  or  winds  sufficient  for  their  ships.  Nor  did  our  trade  and 
manufactures  languish  amidst  this  blaze  of  military  fame.  It  is 
the  peculiar  honour  of  Chatham — as  may  yet  be  seen  inscribed  on 
the  stately  monument  which  the  citizens  of  London  have  raised 
him  in  Guildhall — that  under  his  rule  they  found  COMMERCE  UNITED 


346  NOTES 

WITH  AND  MADE  TO  FLOURISH  BY  WAR.  !3till  less  can  it  be  said 
that  these  wonders  had  grown  altogether  from  harmony  and  con- 
cord at  home.  It  was  the  just  vaunt  of  Chatham  himself  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  that  success  had  given  us  unanimity,  not  una- 
nimity success.  Never  yet  had  there  been  a  more  rapid  transition 
from  languor  and  failure  to  spirit  and  conquest.  Never  yet  had  the 
merits  of  a  great  Minister  in  producing  that  transition  been  more 
fully  acknowledged  in  his  lifetime.  The  two  Houses,  which  re- 
assembled in  November,  met  only  to  pass  Addresses  of  Congratu- 
lation and  Votes  of  Credit.  So  far  from  seeking  to  excuse  or  to 
palliate  the  large  supplies  which  he  demanded,  Pitt  plumed  himself 
upon  them  ;  he  was  the  first  to  call  them  enormous,  and  double  any 
years  of  Queen  Anne.  *  To  push  expense,'  he  said  openly  upon 
the  Army  Estimates,  '  is  the  best  economy' — a  wise  doctrine  in 
war,  which,  perhaps,  no  statesman  since  his  son  has  had  the  courage 
to  avow." 

LORD  MAHON'S  History  of  England,  vol.  iv.  p.  277. 

*  *  "  Such  then  was  the  close  of  Pitt's  justly  renowned  admin- 
istration. Even  amidst  the  full  blaze  of  its  glory  there  arose  some 
murmurs  at  its  vast  expense — the  only  objection  of  any  weight,  I 
think,  that  has  ever  been  urged  against  it.  Yet,  as  a  shrewd  ob- 
server writes  at  the  time,  '  It  has  cost  us  a  great  deal,  it  is  true, 
but  then  we  have  had  success  and  honour  for  our  money.  Before 
Mr.  Pitt  came  in,  we  spent  vast  sums  only  to  purchase  disgrace 
and  infamy.'  What  number,  I  would  ask,  of  pounds,  of  shillings, 
or  of  pence,  could  fairly  represent  the  value  of  rousing  the  national 
spirit,  and  retrieving  the  national  honour?  Is  it  gold  that  can 
measure  the  interval  between  the  lowest  pitch  of  despondency  and 
the  pinnacle  of  triumph — between  the  England  of  1756  and  the 
England  of  176  H 

"  Let  me  add,  that  in  the  closing  act  of  this  administration — in 
proposing  an  immediate  declaration  of  war  against  Spain — Pitt  did 
not  urge  any  immature  or  ill-considered  scheme.  His  prepara- 
tions were  already  made  to  strike  more  than  one  heavy  blow  upon 
his  enemy — to  capture  the  returning  galleons — and  to  take  posses- 
sion of  the  Isthmus  of  Panama,  thus  securing  a  port  in  the  Pacific, 
and  cutting  off  all  communication  between  the  Spanish  provinces 


TO   LECTURE    VII.  34? 

of  Mexico  and  Peru.  Nor  did  his  designs  end  here  :  these  points 
once  accomplished — as  they  might  have  been  with  little  difficulty— 
he  had  planned  an  expedition  against  the  Havana,  and  another, 
on  a  smaller  scale,  against  the  Philippine  islands.  In  none  of  these 
places  could  the  means  of  resistance  be  compared  to  those  of  the 
French  in  Canada,  while  the  means  of  aggression  from  England 
would  be  the  same.  Yet  a  few  months,  and  the  most  precious 
provinces  of  Spain  in  the  New  World,  the  brightest  gems  of  her 
colonial  empire,  might  not  improbably  have  decked  the  British 
Crown !  In  reviewing  designs  so  vast,  pursued  by  a  spirit  so  lofty, 
I  can  only  find  a  parallel  from  amongst  that  nation  which  Pitt 
sought  to  humble ;  I  can  only  point  to  Cardinal  Ximenes.  This 
resemblance  would  be  the  less  surprising,  since  Pitt,  at  the  outset 
of  his  administration,  had  once,  in  conversation  with  Fox,  talked 
much  of  Ximenes,  who,  he  owned,  was  his  favourite  character  in 
History." 

Id.  chap,  xxxvii.  ad  fin. 

NOTE  9.— Page  326. 

John  Stuart,  Earl  of  Bute,  '  the  favourite,'  as  Horace  Walpole 
styles  him  in  his  '  Memoirs  of  the  Reign  of  George  III.,'  and  '  the 
Scotch  favourite?  as  the  London  Mob  called  him,  was  sworn  into 
the  first  Privy  Council  of  George  III.,  and  as  a  member  of  the 
Cabinet.  Early  in  the  next  year,  1761,  he  succeeded  the  Earl  of 
Holderness  as  one  of  the  Secretaries  of  State,  and  when  Mr.  Pitt 
resigned  from  the  Ministry  in  October,  and  was  followed  by  Lord 
Temple,  the  ascendency  of  Lord  Bute  became  complete.  In  1762, 
on  the  resignation  of  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  he  was  declared  First 
Lord  of  the  Treasury. 


NOTE  10.— Page  326. 

Lord  Mahon,  in  the  fourth  volume  of  his  History,  after  referring 
to  the  contemporary  opinion  of  Lord  Granville,  who,  when  the  pre- 
liminaries of  the  Treaty  of  Paris  were  submitted  to  him,  gave  it 
his  approbation,  as  that  "  of  a  dying  statesman  on  the  most  glorious 
war  and  the  most  honourable  peace  the  nation  ever  saw" — adds. 


348  NOTES 

"  The  calm  reflections  of  posterity  will  not,  I  think  confirm  this 
partial  judgment.  To  them  the  terms  obtained  will  appear  by  no 
means  fully  commensurate  to  the  conquests  that  we  had  made,  nor 
to  the  expectations  which  had  been,  not  unreasonably,  raised."  At 
the  same  time  he  regards  it  still  farther  removed  from  the  violent 
reproaches  which  were  cast  upon  it  by  party  hatred.  "  The  mis- 
representations," he  remarks,  "  against  this  treaty  were  undoubtedly 
far  greater  than  even  its  defects."  IV.  pp.  408-9,  ch.  xxxviii. 
The  debate  on  the  Preliminaries  was  the  occasion,  it  will  be  re- 
membered, of  one  of  Pitt's  remarkable  efforts  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  when  his  elaborate  eloquence  was  exerted,  but  without 
effect,  against  the  Treaty. 


NOTE  11.— Page  329. 

"  The  publication  of  regular  newspapers,  partly  designed  for  the 
communication  of  intelligence,  partly  for  the  discussion  of  politica) 
topics,  may  be  referred,  upon  the  whole,  to  the  reign  of  Anne,  when 
they  obtained  great  circulation,  and  became  the  accredited  organs 
of  different  factions.  The  tory  ministers,  towards  the  close  of  that 
reign,  were  annoyed  at  the  vivacity  of  the  press  both  in  periodical 
and  other  writings,  which  led  to  a  stamp  duty,  intended  chiefly  to 
diminish  their  number,  and  was  nearly  producing  more  pernicious 
restrictions,  such  as  renewing  the  licensing  act,  or  compelling  au- 
thors to  acknowledge  their  names.*  These  however  did  not  take 
place,  and  the  government  more  honourably  coped  with  their  adver- 
saries in  the  same  warfare ;  nor  with  Swift  and  Bolingbroke  on 
their  side  could  they  require,  except  indeed  through  the  badness  of 
their  cause,  any  aid  from  the  arm  of  power,  "f 

HALLAM'S  Constit.  Hist.,  vol.  iii.  p.  396. 


*  "  A  bill  was  brought  in  for  this  purpose  in  1712,  which  Swift,  in  his  History  of 
the  Last  Four  Years,  who  never  printed  any  thing  with  his  name,  naturally  blames 
It  miscarried,  probably  on  account  of  this  provision."  *  *  * 

t  "  Bolingbroke's  letter  to  the  Examiner,  in  1710,  excited  so  much  attention,  that  it 
was  answered  by  lord  Cowper,  then  chancellor,  in  a  letter  to  the  Taller.  Somers' 
Tracts,  xiii.  75 ;  where  Sir  Walter  Scott  justly  observes,  that  the  fact  of  two  such 
statesmen  becoming  the  correspondents  of  periodical  publications,  shows  the  influence 
they  must  have  acquired  over  the  public  mind." 


TO    LECTURE    VII.  349 

u  Ce  fut  le  cardinal  Mazarin  qui  s'avisa  le  premier  de  faire  un  in- 
strument politique  des  feuilles  qui,  a  1'imitation  de  la  gazetta  de 
Venise,  se  publiaient  en  Italic.  Ce  ministre  astucieux  y  faisait  in- 
serer  des  bulletins  de  la  guerre  d'Espagne,  et  des  nouvelles  poli- 
tiques  sur  les  evenemens  interieurs  de  la  France,  auxquels  il  donnait 
la  couleur  qui  convenait  a  ses  vues  et  favorisait  ses  intrigues.  Get 
exemple  ne  manqua  pas  d'imitateurs." 

DUMAS  :  *  Precis  des  Evtnemens  Militaires,'  tome  ix.  notes,  p.  435. 


NOTE  12.— Page  332. 

"  The  censorship  was  an  office  so  remarkable,  that  however  fa- 
miliar the  subject  may  be  to  many  readers,  it  is  necessary  here  to 
bestow  some  notice  on  it.  Its  original  business  was  to  take  a 
register  of  the  citizens  and  of  their  property ;  but  this,  which  seems 
at  first  sight  to  be  no  more  than  the  drawing  up  of  a  mere  statistical 
report,  became  in  fact,  from  the  large  discretion  allowed  to  every 
Roman  officer,  a  political  power  of  the  highest  importance.  The 
censors  made  out  the  returns  of  the  free  population ;  but  they  did 
more ;  they  divided  it  according  to  its  civil  distinctions,  and  drew 
up  a  list  of  the  senators,  a  list  of  the  equites,  a  list  of  the  members 
of  the  several  tribes,  or  of  those  citizens  who  enjoyed  the  right  of 
voting,  and  a  list  of  the  agrarians,  consisting  of  those  freedmen, 
naturalized  strangers,  and  others,  who  being  enrolled  in  no  tribe, 
possessed  no  vote  in  the  comitia,  but  still  enjoyed  all  the  private 
rights  of  Roman  citizens.  Now  the  lists  thus  drawn  up  by  the  cen- 
sors were"  regarded  as  legal  evidence  of  a  man's  condition :  the 
state  could  refer  to  no  more  authentic  standard  than  to  the  returns 
deliberately  made  by  one  of  its  highest  magistrates,  who  was  re- 
sponsible to  it  for  their  being  drawn  up  properly.  He  would,  in  the 
first  place,  be  the  sole  judge  of  many  questions  of  fact,  such  as 
whether  a  citizen  had  the  qualifications  required  by  law  or  custom 
for  the  rank  which  he  claimed,  or  whether  he  had  ever  incurred 
any  judicial  sentence  which  rendered  him  infamous  ;  but  from  thence 
the  transition  was  easy,  according  to  Roman  notions,  to  the  de- 
cision of  questions  of  right ;  such  as  whether  a  citizen  was  really 
worthy  of  retaining  his  rank,  whether  he  had  not  committed  some 
act  as  justly  degrading  as  those  which  incurred  the  sentence  of  the 

30 


350  NOTES 

law ;  and  in  this  manner  the  censor  gave  a  definite  power  to  public 
opinion,  and  whatever  acts  or  habits  were  at  variance  with  the  gen- 
eral feeling,  he  held  himself  authorized  to  visit  with  disgrace  or 
disfranchisement.  Thus  was  established  a  direct  check  upon  many 
vices  or  faults  which  law,  in  almost  all  countries,  has  not  ventured 
to  notice.  Whatever  was  contrary  to  good  morals,  or  to  the  cus- 
toms of  their  fathers,  Roman  citizens  ought  to  be  ashamed  to  prac- 
tise :  if  a  man  behaved  tyrannically  to  his  wife  or  children,  if  he 
was  guilty  of  excessive  cruelty  even  to  his  slaves,  if  he  neglected 
his  land,  if  he  indulged  in  habits  of  extravagant  expense,  or  followed 
any  calling  which  was  regarded  as  degrading,  the  offence  was  justly 
noted  by  the  censors,  and  the  offender  was  struck  off  from  the  list 
of  senators,  if  his  rank  were  so  high ;  or  if  he  were  an  ordinary 
citizen,  he  was  expelled  from  his  tribe,  and  reduced  to  the  class  of 
the  agrarians.  Beyond  this  the  censor  had  no  power  of  degradation  ; 
for  the  private  rights  of  Roman  citizens  could  not  be  taken  away  by 
any  magistrate  ;  the  sentence  could  only  affect  his  honours,  or  such 
privileges  as  were  strictly  political."* 

History  qf  Rome,  vol.  i.  348,  chap.  xvii. 

NOTE  13.— Page  332. 

In  May,  1770,  the  Earl  of  Chatham  brought  in  a  bill,  in  the  House 
of  Lords,  to  reverse  the  proceedings  of  the  House  of  Commons  on 
the  Middlesex  election — his  intention,  as  he  declared,  being  to  give 
the  people  a  strong  and  thorough  sense  of  the  great  violation  of  the 
constitution,  by  those  unjust  and  arbitrary  proceedings.  It  was  en- 
titled "  A  Bill  for  reversing  the  Adjudications  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, whereby  John  Wilkes,  Esq.  has  been  adjudged  incapable  of 
being  elected  a  member  to  serve  in  this  Parliament,  and  the  Free- 
holders of  the  County  of  Middlesex  have  been  deprived  of  one  of 
their  legal  representatives."  It  sets  forth  the  rights  of  the  Com- 
mons to  elect  their  representatives ;  and  after  reciting  the  several 

*  "This  was  called  a  'judicium  turpe,'  and  this  was  incurred  in  various  actions, 
which  are  specified  by  the  lawyers ;  as,  for  instance,  if  a  man  were  cast  in  an  actio 
furti,  or  vi  bonorum  raptorum,  or  tutelae,  or  mandati,  or  pro  socio,  etc.  See  Gains,  In- 
stitutes, iv.  $  182.  And  the  disqualification  thus  incurrert  was  perpetual,  and  could 
not  be  reversed  by  the  censors.  See  Cicero  pro  Cluentio,  42  " 


TO  LECTURE  VII.  35] 

elections  of  Wilkes,  and  the  action  of  the  House  of  Commons,  de- 
clares their  adjudications  arbitrary  and  illegal.  Lord  Chatham 
spoke  on  the  Bill,  which  was,  however,  rejected. 

Wilkes  was  an  instance  of  a  worthless  and  profligate  man  be- 
coming, by  chance  or  management,  the  representative  of  a  popular 
principle,  and  thus  acquiring  an  importance  he  was  utterly  unworthy 
of.  He  was  upheld  and  caressed,  because  it  was  conceived  that 
in  the  measures  directed  against  him  the  Constitution  itself  was  as- 
sailed ;  the  consequence  of  which  was  that,  as  Horace  Walpole 
said,  he  was  elected  as  often  as  Marius  was  chosen  consul.  He 
escaped  too  in  some  measure  moral  reprobation  in  the  defence 
against  political  persecution.  In  after  years,  when  the  causes  of 
his  accidental  consequence  had  passed  away,  he  sank  to  his  real 
level. 


NOTE  14.— Page  332. 

Wilkes's  opponent  was  Col.  Luttrell,  and  the  profligate  society 
which  Dr.  Arnold  alludes  to,  is  said  to  have  originated  with  Sir 
Francis  Dashwood — the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  in  the  Bute 
Ministry.  Horace  Walpole — perhaps  sufficient  authority  in  the 
gossip  of  history — gives  the  following  account  of  the  society  and 
its  projector.  "  Sir  Francis  Dashwood  had  long  been  known  by  his 
singularities  and  some  humour.  In  his  early  youth,  accoutred  like 
Charles  XII.,  he  had  travelled  to  Russia  in  hopes  of  captivating  the 
Czarina ;  but  neither  the  character  nor  dress  of  Charles  were  well 
imagined  to  catch  a  woman's  heart.  In  Italy,  Sir  Francis  had  given 
into  the  most  open  profaneness  ;  and  at  his  return,  had  assembled  a 
society  of  Young  Travellers,  (they  called  themselves  the  Dilettanti,) 
to  which  a  taste  for  the  arts  and  antiquity,  or  merely  having  trav- 
elled, were  the  recommendatory  ingredients.  Their  pictures  were 
drawn,  ornamented  with  symbols  and  devices ;  and  the  founder,  in 
the  habit  of  St.  Francis,  and  with  a  chalice  in  his  hand,  was  repre- 
sented at  his  devotions  before  a  statue  of  the  Venus  of  Medicis,  a 
stream  of  glory  beaming  on  him  from  behind  her  lower  hand.  These 
pictures  were  long  exhibited  in  their  club-room  at  a  tavern  in  Palace 
Yard ;  but  of  later  years  Saint  Francis  had  instituted  a  more  select 
order.  He  and  some  chosen  friends  had  hired  the  ruins  of  Meden- 


352  NOTES 

ham  Abbey,  near  Marlow,  and  refitted  it  in  a  conventual  style, 
Thither  at  stated  seasons  they  adjourned ;  had  each  their  cell,  a 
proper  habit,  a  monastic  name,  and  a  refectory  in  common — besides 
a  chapel,  the  decorations  of  which  may  well  be  supposed  to  have 
contained  the  quintessence  of  their  mysteries,  since  it  was  impene- 
trable to  any  but  the  initiated.  Whatever  their  doctrines  were,  their 
practice  was  rigorously  pagan  :  Bacchus  and  Venus  were  the  deities 
to  whom  they  almost  publicly  sacrificed.  Yet  their  follies  would 
have  escaped  the  eye  of  the  public,  if  Lord  Bute  from  this  seminary 
of  piety  and  wisdom  had  not  selected  a  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer. But  politics  had  no  sooner  infused  themselves  amongst 
these  rosy  anchorites,  than  dissensions  were  kindled,  and  a  false 
brother  arose,  who  divulged  the  arcana  and  exposed  the  good  Prior, 
in  order  to  ridicule  him  as  Minister  of  the  Finances." 

'  Memoirs  of  the  Reign  of  George  the  Third?  chap.  xi. 

NOTE  15.— Page  333. 

By  way  of  confirmation  of  a  right  judgment  upon  a  writer  such 
as  Junius,  the  opinion  of  Coleridge  may  aptly  be  added : 

*  *  "  The  great  art  of  Junius  is  never  to  say  too  much,  and  to 
avoid  with  equal  anxiety  a  commonplace  manner,  and  matter  that 
is  not  commonplace.  If  ever  he  deviates  into  any  originality  of 
thought,  he  takes  care  that  it  shall  be  such  as  excites  surprise  for 

its  acuteness  rather  than  admiration  for  its  profundity The 

Letters  are  plain  and  sensible  whenever  the  author  is  in  the  right, 
and  whether  right  or  wrong,  always  shrewd  and  epigrammatic,  and 
fitted  for  the  coffee-house,  the  exchange,  the  lobby  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  and  to  be  read  aloud  at  a  public  meeting.  When  con- 
nected, dropping  the  forms  of  connection,  desultory  without  abrupt- 
ness or  appearance  of  disconnection,  epigrammatic  and  antithetical 
to  excess,  sententious  and  personal,  regardless  of  right  or  wrong, 
yet  well  skilled  to  act  the  part  of  an  honest,  warm-hearted  man, 
and  even  when  he  is  in  the  right,  saying  the  truth  but  never 
proving  it,  much  less  attempting  to  bottom  it, — this  is  the  charac- 
ter of  Junius  ; — and  on  this  character,  and  in  the  mould  -of  these 
writings  must  every  man  cast  himself,  who  would  wish  in  factious 
times  to  be  the  important  and  long-remembered  agent  of  a  faction.' 

'  Literary  Remains  of  S.  T.  C,'  i.  249. 


TO    LECTURE    VII.  353 

NOTE  16.— Page  334. 

"The  most  splendid  passage  in  Lord  Chatham's  public  life  was 
certainly  the  closing  one :  when  on  the  7th  of  April,  1778,  wasted 
by  his  dire  disease,  but  impelled  by  an  overruling  sense  of  duty,  he 
repaired  for  the  last  time  to  the  House  of  Lords,  tottering  from 
weakness,  and  supported  on  one  side  by  his  son-in-law  Lord  Mahon, 
on  the  other  by  his  second  son  William,  ere  long  to  become  like  him- 
self the  saviour  of  his  country.  Of  such  a  scene  even  the  slightest 
details  have  interest,  and  happily  they  are  recorded  in  the  words  of 
an  eye-witness.  Lord  Chatham,  we  are  told,  was  dressed  in  black 
velvet,  but  swathed  up  to  the  knees  in  flannel.  From  within  his 
large  wig  little  more  was  to  be  seen  than  his  aquiline  nose  and  his 
penetrating  eye.  He  looked,  as  he  was,  a  dying  man  ;  '  yet  never,' 
adds  the  narrator,  '  was  seen  a  figure  of  more  dignity ;  he  appeared 
like  a  being  of  a  superior  species.'  He  rose  from  his  seat  with 
slowness  and  difficulty,  leaning  on  his  crutches  and  supported  by 
his  two  relations.  He  took  his  hand  from  his  crutch  and  raised  it, 
lifting  his  eyes  towards  Heaven,  and  said, — '  I  thank  God  that  I 
have  been  enabled  to  come  here  this  day, — to  perform  my  duty, 
and  to  speak  on  a  subject  which  has  so  deeply  impressed  my  mind. 
I  am  old  and  infirm — have  one  foot,  more  than  one  foot  in  the  grave. 
I  am  risen  from  my  bed,  to  stand  up  in  the  cause  of  my  country — 
perhaps  never  again  to  speak  in  this  House.'  The  reverence,  the 
attention,  the  stillness  of  the  House  were  here  most  affecting ;  had 
any  one  dropped  a  handkerchief  the  noise  would  have  been  heard. 
At  first  he  spoke  in  the  low  and  feeble  tone  of  sickness,  but  as  he 
grew  warm,  his  voice  rose  in  peals  as  high  and  harmonious  as  ever. 
He  gave  the  whole  history  of  the  American  war,  detailing  the  mea- 
sures to  which  he  had  objected,  and  the  evil  consequences  which  he 
had  foretold,  adding,  at  the  close  of  each  period,  '  and  so  it  proved.' 
He  then  expressed  his  indignation  at  the  idea,  which  he  heard  had 
gone  forth,  of  yielding  up  the  sovereignty  of  America ;  he  called 
for  vigorous  and  prompt  exertion  ;  he  rejoiced  that  he  was  still 
alive,  to  lift  up  his  voice  against  the  first  dismemberment  of  this 
ancient  and  most  noble  monarchy.  After  him,  the  Duke  of  Rich- 
mond attempted  some  explanations  and  defence  on  the  part  of  the 

government.     Lord  Chatham  heard  him  with  attention,  and  when  his 

30* 


354  NOTES 

Grace  had  concluded,  eagerly  rose  to  reply.  But  this  last  exertion 
overcame  him,  and  after  repeated  attempts  to  stand  firm,  he  sud- 
denly pressed  his  hand  to  his  heart,  and  fell  back  in  convulsions. 
The  Duke  of  Cumberland,  Lord  Temple,  and  other  Peers,  caught 
him  in  their  arms,  and  bore  him  to  a  neighbouring  apartment,  while 
the  Lords  left  in  the  House,  immediately  adjourned  in  the  utmost 
confusion  and  concern.  He  was  removed  to  Hayes,  and  lingered 
till  the  llth  of  May,  when  the  mighty  spirit  was  finally  released 
from  its  shattered  frame.  Who  that  reads  of  this  soul-stirring  scene 
— who  that  has  seen  it  portrayed  by  that  painter,  whose  son  has 
since  raised  himself  by  his  genius  to  be  a  principal  light  and  orna- 
ment of  the  same  assembly — who  does  not  feel  that  were  the  choice 
before  him,  he  would  rather  live  that  one  triumphant  hour  of  pain 
and  suffering,  than  through  the  longest  career  of  thriving  and  suc- 
cessful selfishness  ?" 

LORD  MAHON'S  '  Hist,  of  England*  voL  iiL  p.  60. 

This  famous  scene  has  suggested  a  passage  in  Dr.  Arnold's  His- 
tory of  Rome,  which  may  be  quoted  here  as  a  specimen  not  only  of 
historic  style,  but  also  of  the  skill  with  which  he  frequently  renders 
ancient  and  modern  story  illustrative  of  each  other  : 

Pyrrhus  had  formed  his  Italian  alliances  against  Rome — a  con- 
sular army  had  been  defeated — Cineas,  the  favourite  minister  of  the 
King  of  Epirus,  had  arrived  as  ambassador  to  the  City  with  terms 
of  peace,  which  it  was  apprehended  many  of  the  Senators  might  be 
awed  into  favouring  : 

"  Appius  Claudius,  the  famous  censor,  the  greatest  of  his  coun- 
trymen in  the  works  of  peace,  and  no  mean  soldier  in  time  of  need, 
was  now,  in  the  thirtieth  year  after  his  censorship,  in  extreme  old 
age,  and  had  been  for  many  years  blind.  But  his  active  mind  tri- 
umphed over  age  and  infirmity ;  and  although  he  no  longer  took 
part  in  public  business,  yet  he  was  ready  in  his  own  house  to  give 
answers  to  those  who  consulted  him  on  points  of  law,  and  his  name 
was  fresh  in  all  men's  minds,  though  his  person  was  not  seen  in  the 
forum.  The  old  man  heard  that  the  Senate  was  listening  to  the 
proposals  of  Cineas,  and  was  likely  to  accept  the  King's  terms  of 
peace.  He  immediately  desired  to  be  carried  to  the  Senate-house, 
and  was  borne  in  a  litter  by  his  slaves  through  the  forum.  When 


TO    LECTURE    VII.  355 

it  was  known  that  Appius  Claudius  was  coming,  his  sons  and  sons- 
in-law  went  out  to  the  steps  of  the  Senate-house  to  receive  him, 
and  he  was  by  them  led  into  his  place.  The  whole  Senate  kept  the 
deepest  silence  as  the  old  man  arose  to  speak. 

"  No  Englishman  can  have  read  thus  far  without  remembering 
the  scene,  in  all  points  so  similar,  which  took  place  within  our  fa- 
thers' memory  in  our  own  house  of  parliament.  We  recollect  how 
the  greatest  of  English  statesmen,  bowed  down  by  years  and  infir- 
mity like  Appius,  but  roused  like  him  by  the  dread  of  approaching 
dishonour  to  the  English  name,  was  led  by  his  son  and  son-in-law 
into  the  House  of  Lords,  and  all  the  peers  with  one  impulse  arose  to 
receive  him.  We  know  the  expiring  words  of  that  mighty  voice, 
when  he  protested  against  the  dismemberment  of  this  ancient  mon- 
archy, and  prayed  that  if  England  must  fall,  she  might  fall  with 
honour.  The  real  speech  of  Lord  Chatham  against  yielding  to  the 
coalition  of  France  and  America,  will  give  a  far  more  lively  image 
of  what  was  said  by  the  blind  Appius  in  the  Roman  Senate,  than 
any  fictitious  oration  which  I  could  either  copy  from  other  writers, 
or  endeavour  myself  to  invent ;  and  those  who  would  wish  to  know 
how  Appius  spoke,  should  read  the  dying  words  of  the  great  orator 
of  England." — II.  ch.  xxxvii.  p.  496. 

NOTE  17.— Page  334. 

The  adverse  feeling  to  the  war  with  France  in  1793,  and  the  sub- 
sequent change  in  the  popular  mind,  are  thus  spoken  of  by  Words- 
worth, in  the  Tract  *  on  the  Convention  of  Cintra  :' 

*  *  "  This  just  and  necessary  war,  as  we  have  been  accustomed  to 
hear  it  styled  from  the  beginning  of  the  contest  in  the  year  1793,  had, 
some  time  before  the  Treaty  of  Amiens,  viz.,  after  the  subjugation 
of  Switzerland,  and  not  till  then,  begun  to  be  regarded  by  the  body 
of  the  people,  as  indeed  both  just  and  necessary  ;  and  this  justice 
and  necessity  were  by  none  more  clearly  perceived,  or  more  feel- 
ingly bewailed,  than  by  those  who  had  most  eagerly  opposed  the 
war  in  its  commencement,  and  who  continued  most  bitterly  to  regret 
that  this  nation  had  ever  borne  a  part  in  it.  Their  conduct  was 
herein  consistent :  they  proved  that  they  kept  their  eyes  steadily 
fixed  upon  principles  ;  for  though  there  was  a  shifting  or  transfer 


356  NOTES 

of  hostility  in  their  minds  as  far  as  regarded  persons,  they  only 
combated  the  same  enemy  opposed  to  them  under  a  different  shape  ; 
and  that  enemy  was  the  spirit  of  selfish  tyranny  and  lawless  ambi- 
tion. .  .  .  The  people  now  wished  for  war,  as  their  rulers  had  done 
before,  because  open  war  between  nations  is  a  defined  and  effectual 
partition,  and  the  sword,  in  the  hands  of  the  good  and  the  virtuous, 

is  the   most  intelligible  symbol  of  abhorrence There  are 

promptings  of  wisdom  from  the  penetralia  of  human  nature,  which 
a  people  can  hear,  though  the  wisest  of  their  practical  Statesmen  be 
deaf  towards  them.  This  authentic  voice  the  people  of  England  had 
heard  and  obeyed  ;  and  in  opposition  to  French  tyranny,  growing 
daily  more  insatiate  and  implacable,  they  ranged  themselves  zealous- 
ly under  their  government ;  though  they  neither  forgot  nor  forgave  its 
transgressions,  in  having  first  involved  them  in  a  war  with  a  people 
then  struggling  for  its  own  liberties  under  a  twofold  affliction — con- 
founded by  inbred  faction,  and  beleagured  by  a  cruel  and  imperious 
external  foe." — p.  6. 

NOTE  18.— Page  337. 

The  cultivation  of  historical  study  is  so  much  regulated  by  a 
right  habit  of  opinion  respecting  past  ages,  especially  in  their  rela- 
tion to  the  age  that  is  present,  that  I  think  it  important  here  to 
illustrate  the  text  by  some  selections,  not  only  from  Dr.  Arnold's 
other  writings,  but  from  some  other  thoughtful  authors  who  have 
touched  upon  this  subject.  History  loses  half  its  value  if  it  teaches 
only  what  we  are  to  shun,  and  nothing  to  admire  and  imitate  :  it 
loses  all  its  value,  when  an  age  "  refuses  to  allow  its  own  temper 
and  judgment  to  be  at  all  controlled  by  those  of  antiquity." 

"  It  is  absurd  to  extol  one  age  at  the  expense  of  another,  since 
each  has  its  good  and  its  bad.  There  was  greater  genius  in  ancient 
times,  but  art  and  science  come  late.  But  in  one  respect  it  is  to  be 
feared  we  have  degenerated — what  Tacitus  so  beautifully  expresses, 
after  telling  a  story  of  a  man,  who,  in  the  civil  war  in  Vespasian's 
time,  had  killed  his  own  brother,  and  received  a  reward  for  it ; 
and  then  relates  that  the  same  thing  happened  before  in  the  civil 
war  of  Sylla  and  Marius,  and  the  man  when  he  found  it  out  killed 


TO    LECTURE    VII.  357 

himself  from  remorse  :  and  then  he  adds,  *  Tanto  major  apud  anti 
quos  ut  virtutibus  gloria,  it&jlagitiis  p&nitentia  erat.'     The  deep 
remorse  for  crime  is  less  in  advanced  civilization.     There  is  more 
of  sympathy  with  suffering  of  all  kinds,  but  less  abhorrence  of  what 
is  admitted  to  be  crime."" 

Life  and  Correspondence :  Appendix  C.,  ix.  3 

"  There  are  few  stranger  and  sadder  sights"  (writes  Dr.  Arnold 
in  the  'Introduction'  to  the  fourth  volume  of  his  Sermons — 1841) 
"  than  to  see  men  judging  of  whole  periods  of  the  history  of  mankind 
with  the  blindness  of  party  spirit,  never  naming  one  century  with- 
out expressions  of  contempt  or  abhorrence,  never  mentioning  another 
but  with  extravagant  and  undistinguishing  admiration." — p.  8. 

And  in  the  same  '  Introduction  :' 

*  *  "In  philosophy  and  general  literature,  there  have  been 
sufficient  proofs  that  the  pendulum,  which  for  nearly  two  hundred 
years  had  been  swinging  one  way,  was  now  ('  in  the  last  ten  years 
of  the  last  century')  beginning  to  swing  back  again  ;  and  as  its  last 
oscillation  brought  it  far  from  the  true  centre,  so  it  may  be,  that  its 
present  impulse  may  be  no  less  in  excess,  and  thus  may  bring  on 
again,  in  afu  rages,  another  corresponding  reaction. 

"  Now,  if  it  be  asked  what,  setting  aside  the  metaphor,  are  the 
two  points  between  which  mankind  has  been  thus  moving  to  and 
fro ;  and  what  are  the  tendencies  in  us  which,  thus  alternately  pre- 
dominating, give  so  different  a  character  to  different  periods  of  the 
human  history  ;  the  answer  is  not  easy  to  be  given  summarily,  for 
the  generalization  which  it  requires  is  almost  beyond  the  compass 
of  the  human  mind.  Several  phenomena  appear  in  each  period, 
and  it  would  be  easy  to  give  any  one  of  these  as  marking  its  tend- 
ency ;  as,  for  instance,  we  might  describe  one  period  as  having  a 
tendency  to  despotism,  and  another  to  licentiousness  :  but  the  true 
answer  lies  deeper,  and  can  be  only  given  by  discovering  that  com- 
mon element  in  human  nature  which,  in  religion,  in  politics,  in 
philosophy,  and  in  literature,  being  modified  by  the  subject  matter 
of  each,  assumes  in  each  a  different  form,  so  that  its  own  proper 
nature  is  no  longer  to  be  recognised.  Again,  it  would  be  an  error 
to  suppose  that  either  of  the  two  tendencies  which  so  affect  the 
course  of  human  affairs  were  to  be  called  simply  bad  or  good 


358  NOTES          .T 

Each  has  its  good  and  evil  nicely  intermingled ;  and  taking  the 
highest  good  of  each,  it  would  be  difficult  to  say  which  was  the 
more  excellent ;  taking  the  last  corruption  of  each,  we  could  not 
determine  which  was  the  more  hateful.  For  so  far  as  we  can 
trace  back  the  manifold  streams,  flowing  some  from  the  eastern 
mountains,  and  some  from  the  western,  to  the  highest  springs  from 
which  they  rise,  we  find  on  the  one  side  the  ideas  of  truth  and 
justice,  on  the  other  those  of  beauty  and  love — things  so  exalted, 
and  so  inseparably  united  in  the  divine  perfections,  that  to  set 
either  two  above  the  other  were  presumptuous  and  profane.  Yet 
these  most  divine  things  separated  from  each  other,  and  defiled  in 
their  passage  through  this  lower  world,  do  each  assume  a  form  in 
human  nature  of  very  great  evil :  the  exclusive  and  corrupted  love 
of  truth  and  justice  becomes  in  man  selfish  atheism ;  the  exclusive 
and  corrupted  worship  of  beauty  and  love  becomes  in  man  a  bloody 
and  lying  idolatry. 

"  Such  would  be  the  general  theory  of  the  two  great  currents  in 
which  human  affairs  may  be  said  to  have  been  successively  drifting. 
But  real  history,  even  the  history  of  all  mankind,  and  much  more  that 
of  any  particular  age  or  country,  presents  a  picture  far  more  com- 
plicated. First,  as  to  time  :  as  the  vessels  in  a  harbour,  and  in  the 
open  sea  without  it,  may  be  seen  swinging  with  the  tide  at  the 
same  moment  in  opposite  directions  ;  the  ebb  has  begun  in  the 
roadstead,  while  it  is  not  yet  high  water  in  the  harbour  ;  so  one  or 
more  nations  may  be  in  advance  of  or  behind  the  general  tendency  of 
their  age,  and  from  either  cause  may  be  moving  in  the  opposite 
direction.  Again,  the  tendency  or  movement  in  itself  is  liable  to 
frequent  interruptions,  and  short  counter-movements :  even  when 
the  tide  is  coming  in  upon  the  shore,  every  wave  retires  after  its 
advance ;  and  he  who  follows  incautiously  the  retreating  waters, 
may  be  caught  by  some  stronger  billow,  overwhelming  again  for  an 
instant  the  spot  which  had  just  been  left  dry.  A  child  standing  by 
the  sea-shore  for  a  few  minutes,  and  watching  this,  as  it  seems, 
irregular  advance  and  retreat  of  the  water,  could  not  tell  whether  it 
was  ebb  or  flood :  and  we,  standing  for  a  few  years  on  the  shore 
of  time,  can  scarcely  tell  whether  the  particular  movement  which 
we  witness  is  according  to  or  against  the  general  tendency  of  the 
whole  period.  Farther  yet,  as  these  great  tendencies  are  often  in- 


TO    LLCTURE    VII.  359 

terrupted,  so  are  they  continually  mixed  :  that  is,  not  only  are  theii 
own  good  and  bad  elements  successively  predominant,  but  they 
never  have  the  world  wholly  to  themselves  :  the  opposite  tendency 
exists,  in  an  under-current  it  may  be,  and  not  lightly  perceptible  ; 
but  here  and  there  it  struggles  to  the  surface,  and  mingles  its  own 
good  and  evil  with  the  predominant  good  and  evil  of  its  antagonist. 
Wherefore  he  who  would  learn  wisdom  from  the  complex  experi- 
ence of  history,  must  question  closely  all  its  phenomena,  must  notice 
that  which  is  less  obvious  as  well  as  that  which  is  most  palpable, 
must  judge  not  peremptorily  or  sweepingly,  but  with  reserves  and 
exceptions  ;  not  as  lightly  overrunning  a  wide  region  of  truth,  but 
thankful,  if  after  much  pains  he  has  advanced  his  landmarks  only  a 
little ;  if  he  has  gained,  as  it  were,  but  one  or  two  frontier  for- 
tresses, in  which  he  can  establish  himself  forever." — p.  iii. 

"  I  confess,  that  if  I  were  called  upon  to  name  what  spirit  of  e\  il 
predominantly  deserved  the  name  of  Antichrist,  I  should  name  the 
spirit  of  chivalry — the  more  detestable  for  the  very  guise  of  the 
*  Archangel  ruined,'  which  has  made  it  so  seductive  to  the  most 
generous  spirits — but  to  me  so  hateful,  because  it  is  in  direct  op- 
position to  the  impartial  justice  of  the  Gospel,  and  its  comprehen- 
sive feeling  of  equal  brotherhood,  and  because  it  so  fostered  a  sense 
of  honour  rather  than  a  sense  of  duty." 

Life  and  Correspondence — Letter,  March  30,  1829. 

In  his  letter  "  on  the  Discipline  of  Public  Schools,"  (Quar.  Jour- 
nal of  Education,  vol.  ix.  p.  281 — 1835,)  Dr.  Arnold,  speaking  of 
the  opinion  that '  corporal  punishment  is  degrading,'  remarks  :  'fc  I 
well  know  of  what  feeling  this  is  the  expression ;  it  originates  in 
that  proud  notion  of  personal  independence,  which  is  neither  rea- 
sonable nor  Christian,  but  essentially  barbarian.  It  visited  Europe 
in  former  times  with  all  the  curses  of  the  age  of  chivalry,  and  is 
threatening  us  now  with  those  of  Jacobinism.  For  so  it  is,  that  the 
evils  of  ultra-aristocracy  and  ultra-popular  principles  spring  pre- 
cisely from  the  same  source — namely,  from  selfish  pride — from  an 
idolatry  of  personal  honour  and  dignity  in  the  aristocratic al  form  of 
the  disease — of  personal  independence  in  its  modern  and  popular 
form.  It  is  simply  impatience  of  inferiority  and  submission — a 
feeling  which  must  be  more  frequently  wrong  or  right,  in  proper- 


3GO  NOTES 

tion  to  the  relative  situation  and  worthiness  of  him  who  entertains 
if,  but  which  cannot  be  always  or  generally  right,  except  in  beings 
infinitely  more  perfect  than  man.  Impatience  of  inferiority  felt  by 
a  child  towards  his  parents,  or  by  a  people  towards  its  instructors, 
is  merely  wrong,  because  it  is  at  variance  with  the  truth  :  there 
exists  a  real  inferiority  in  the  relation,  and  it  is  an  error,  a  fault,  a 
corruption  of  nature,  not  to  acknowledge  it." 

These  are  strong  expressions  of  condemnation  of  that  element  in 
the  middle  ages,  which  Dr.  Arnold  termed  *  chivalry,'  or  more 
justly,  *  feudality.'  If  it  is  to  be  spoken  of  as  '  chivalry,'  then, 
unless  we  mean  vainly  to  entangle  our  thoughts  in  a  mere  verbal 
discussion,  it  should  be  remembered  that  it  had  a  side  of  truth  as 
well  as  of  error-1— a  bright  side  as  well  as  a  dark  one — and  this,  its 
glory,  Arnold  himself  saw  when  his  spirit  was  glowing  with  the 
fervent  admiration  which  he  habitually  professed  for  the  hero-saint, 
the  Ninth  Louis  of  France.  Looking,  however,  chiefly  at  the  evils 
of  the  system,  and  its  abuses  during  a  certain  period  of  history,  he 
came  to  look  upon  chivalry  as  the  lawless,  tyrannical  selfishness  of 
mediaeval  feudality,  while  another  author,  looking  from  another 
point  of  view,  contemplates  it  as  a  thing,  in  some  form  or  other, 
coeval  with  human  society,  and  infinitely  ennobled  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Christian  religion,  and  hence  a  widely  different  defini- 
tion of  the  term  :  "  Chivalry  is  only  a  name  for  that  general  spirit 
or  state  of  mind  which  disposes  men  to  heroic  and  generous  actions, 
and  keeps  them  conversant  with  all  that  is  beautiful  and  sublime  in 
the  intellectual  and  moral  world." — '  The  Broad  Stone  of  Honour, 
or  the  True  Sense  and  Practice  of  Chivalry^  by  Kenelm  Henry 
Digby,  Esq.  In  referring  to  this  volume,  I  feel  that  this  is  one  of 
the  cases — alas !  too  many — where  we  are  constrained  to  seek  for 
truth  in  the  study  of  extremes  ;  and  I  am  not  willing  that  the  ref- 
erence should  be  made  unaccompanied  with  explanation  of  the  char- 
acter of  the  book.  In  the  '  Guesses  at  Truth,1  amid  more  of  en- 
thusiastic eulogy,  and  more,  too,  of  earnest  and  reluctant  censure 
than  I  have  room  to  quote,  '  The  Broad  Stone  of  Honour'  is  spoken 
of  as  "  a  book,  fitted,  above  almost  all  others,  to  inspire  youthful 
minds  with  the  feelings  befitting  a  Christian  gentleman,"  and  as 
"  rich  in  magnanimous  and  holy  thoughts,  and  in  tales  of  honour 
and  of  piety.  .  .  .  The  author  identifies  himself,  as  few  have  ever 


TO    LECTURE    VII.  361 

done,  with  the  good,  and  great,  and  heroic,  and  holy  in  former 
times,  and  ever  rejoices  in  passing  out  of  himself  into  them :  he 
loves  to  utter  his  thoughts  and  feelings  in  their  words,  rather  than 
his  own :  and  the  saints,  and  philosophers,  and  warriors  of  old  join 
in  swelling:  the  sacred  consort  which  rises  heavenward  from  his 
pages.  Nevertheless,  it  is  not  a  book  which  can  be  recommended 
without  hesitation  to  the  young.  The  very  charm  which  it  is  sure 
to  exercise  over  them,  hightens  one's  scruples  about  doing  so.  For 
in  it  the  author  has  come  forward  as  a  convert  and  champion  of  the 
Romish  Church,  and  as  the  implacable  enemy  of  Protestantism.  .  . 
He  culls  the  choicest  and  noblest  stories  out  of  fifteen  centuries, — 
and  not  merely  out  of  history,  but  out  of  poetry  and  romance, — and 
the  purest  and  sublimest  morsels  of  the  great  religious  writers  be- 
tween the  time  of  the  Apostles  and  the  Reformation  :  and  this  mag- 
nificent spiritual  hierarchy  he  sets  before  us  as  a  living  and  trust- 
worthy picture  of  what  the  Ages  of  Faith,  as  he  terms  them,  act- 
ually were.  On  the  other  hand,  shutting  his  eyes  to  what  is  great 
and  holy  in  later  times,  he  picks  out  divers  indications  of  baseness, 
unbelief,  pusillanimity,  and  worldlymindedness,  as  portraying  what 
Europe  has  become,  owing  to  the  dissolution  of  the  unity  of  the 
Church."— p.  206. 

*  *  *  "  The  present  time  is  distinguished  beyond  any  that  have 
preceded  it,  not  merely  by  the  neglect,  but  by  the  dislike  of  antiqui- 
ty. All  the  world  appears  bent  upon  *  laying  again  the  foundation' 
of  all  things.  Customary  usage,  far  from  being  a  recommendation, 
is  taken  as  argument  either  of  folly  or  of  fraud.  To  plead  length 
of  prescription  in  favour  of  an  existing  practice,  or  an  established 
right,  is  to  confess  that  no  better  reason  can  be  urged  in  its  defence. 
A  remote  origin  affords,  it  is  argued,  a  presumption,  not  in  favour 
of  a  given  institution,  but  against  it ;  because  length  of  years  are 
likely  to  have  occasioned  a  change  of  circumstances,  and  what  may 
have  been  right  and  fitting  long  ago,  can  hardly  fail  of  being  obso- 
lete and  unsuitable  now. 

"  Thus,  whatever  is  ancient  is  presumed  to  be  antiquated,  more 
especially  in  an  enlightened  age,  preceded  by  centuries  of  compara- 
tive darkness,  when  the  human  mind,  freeing  itself  from  the  re- 
straints by  which  it  was  formerly  fettered,  has  sprung  forward  with 

31 


362  NOTES 

a  sudden  and  unexampled  bound.  That  such  has  been  for  some 
time  the  tone  of  public  feeling,  is  testified,  not  only  in  the  course 
of  political  events,  or  in  the  conduct  of  a  political  party,  but  in  the 
literature,  habits,  and  manners  of  the  people  at  large.  It  may  be 
regarded  as  a  moving  principle  in  the  formation  of  popular  opinion  ; 
a  principle  sometimes  nearly  dormant,  and  overborne  by  a  dead 
weight  of  custom  ;  sometimes  nicely  balanced  by  counter  influen- 
ces, and  tending  to  progressive  improvement ;  sometimes  acquiring 
a  rapid  and  uncontrollable  development,  and  menacing  total  de- 
struction. 

"  That  this  way  of  thinking,  like  every  other  that  obtains  widely 
and  forcibly  among  mankind,  has  a  side  of  truth,  and  when  properly 
limited,  has  been  productive  of  good ;  nay,  that  at  certain  periods 
it  has  been  usefully  called  forth  into  unusual  energy  in  the  service 
of  religion,  need  not  be  denied :  but  that,  as  at  present  exhibited,  it 
is  mischievous,  extravagant,  and  unreasonable,  is  felt  by  all  sober- 
minded  persons,  and  scarcely  requires  proof. 

"  And,  first,  it  greatly  overestimates,  not  merely  the  superiority 
of  the  present  over  past  ages,  in  substantial  v/isdom,  and  that 
knowledge,  of  whatever  kind,  upon  which  it  is  founded,  but  even 
the  difference  in  kind,  existing  between  our  times  and  those  of  our 
ancestors.  It  is  not  asserted  that  there  has  been  no  advance  in  use- 
ful knowledge,  or  that  no  real  variation  in  the  actual  state  of  things 
has  taken  place,  but  only  that  the  degree  is  vastly  overrated. 

"  In  regard  to  the  first,  the  supposed  superiority  of  the  present 
age,  the  mistake  arises  in  various  ways.  A  part  of  knowledge, 
perhaps  the  least  important,  is  put  for  the  whole.  No  balance  is 
struck  between  what  is  gained  in  one  department,  and  what  is  lost 
in  another.  The  worthiness  of  the  end  pursued  is  not  considered 
in  determining  the  value  of  the  means.  Thus  science,  the  doctrine 
of  means,  usurps  the  place  of  philosophy,  the  doctrine  of  ultimate 
ends.  The  economy  of  wealth  is  taken  as  the  measure  of  national 
welfare  ;  legislation  passes  for  jurisprudence.  So  again,  the  study 
of  nature  may  have  flourished,  the  study  of  mind  may  have  drooped  ; 
the  arts  of  life  may  have  advanced,  domestic  wisdom  may  have  lost 
ground  ;  education  may  have  been  diffused,  scholastic  learning  may 
have  declined.  All  our  gains  are  counted,  but  our  losses  are  not 
set  against  them.  And  again,  personal  comfort,  convenience,  or 


TO   LECTURE    VII.  363 

luxury,  mental  or  bodily,  is  openly  proposed,  not  only  as  the  best, 
but  as  the  only  object  of  intellectual  pursuit ;  whereas  formerly,  the 
search  of  truth  was  supposed  to  bring  its  own  recompense.  Thus 
a  lower  end  is  substituted  for  a  higher ;  and  by  overstating  the 
claims  of  our  fellow-creatures,  once  too  much  neglected  in  these 
studies,  we  forget  the  more  sublime  relation  between  the  human 
spirit  and  the  God  who  gave  it.  The  effect  which  has  resulted  to 
the  religion  of  the  day  is  very  striking,  and  far  from  unmixedly 
good.  It  is  the  recoil  of  monastic  piety  in  matters  of  devotion,  as 
of  monastic  philosophy  in  the  pursuit  of  intellect."  *  *  * 

"  In  a  word,  the  contempt  of  antiquity,  so  commonly  manifested, 
places  the  age  in  a  false  position,  more  especially  in  ecclesiastical 
affairs.  A  single  generation  is  drawn  up  in  array  against  all  that 
have  preceded  it,  and  has  to  make  good  its  pretensions,  not  only 
with  no  assistance  from  the  great  and  good  men  that  *  sleep  in  the 
Lord,'  but  against  their  united  forces.  Covenant  is  broken  with 
the  mighty  dead ;  and  they,  whose  everliving  wisdom,  whether  it 
speak  to  us  in  books,  or  yet  more  impressively  in  the  institutions 
which  they  have  contributed  to  form,  to  sanction,  to  improve,  are 
set  aside  to  make  room  for  the  new,  capricious,  dogmatical,  untried 
authorities  of  the  day  ;  for  partial  interests,  sectarian  prejudice,  and 
temporary  fashion  ;  for  the  despotic  sway  and  idolatrous  worship  of 
the  present ;  as  if  there  were  neither  voice  nor  vision  in  the  oracu- 
lar past." 

DERWENT  COLERIDGE  :  '  Scriptural  Character  of  the  Church?  p.  80. 

*  *  "  Far  from  adopting  an  opinion  which  was  prevalent  at  least 
till  very  recently,  that  the  questions  which  occupied  the  schools 
were  trivial,  senseless,  and  now  wholly  obsolete,  we  think  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  overrate  their  intrinsic  value,  or  the  influence  which  they 
are  exercising  upon  ourselves  at  the  present  moment.  The  persons 
who  use  the  words  Ontology  or  Nominalism  and  Realism  with  a 
sneer,  little  know  how  much  those  difficulties  of  which  Ontology 
treats  are  besetting  their  own  path  ;  with  what  vehemence  the  con- 
troversy between  Nominalism  and  Realism  is  carried  on  within 
their  own  minds  and  in  the  minds  of  all  about  them.  We  do  not 
gain  much  by  speaking  contemptuously  of  our  progenitors  ;  we  only 
contrive  that  we  should  suffer  all  the  perplexities  which  they  suf 


364  NOTES 

fered  without  the  same  consciousness  of  them  which  they  had,  and 
without  their  help  in  extricating  ourselves  from  them.  The  mistake 
has  been  owing,  we  fancy,  in  a  great  measure  to  a  confused  appre- 
hension that  the  schools  and  the  world  have  in  all  times,  and  had  at 
this  time  especially,  very  little  to  do  with  each  other.  The  fashion 
of  scorning  the  active  life  of  the  middle  ages  is  passing  away ;  nay, 
is  just  at  present  giving  place  to  a  sentimental  admiration.  Men 
have  discovered  that  something  was  done  in  this  so-called  dark  time 
which  we  in  our  bright  time  could  not  well  dispense  with.  But  un- 
less the  speculative  life  of  that  period,  besides  obtaining  the  cour- 
teous treatment  which  it  is  likely  to  meet  with  under  such  a  re- 
action, be  viewed  in  connection  with  this  practical  life  and  shown 
to  be  inseparable  from  it,  there  is  no  chance,  we  think,  of  either 
being  dealt  with  clearly  and  justly.  A  history  which  should  do 
this  would  far  more  effectually  expose  the  real  evils  of  the  middle 
ages,  and  show  whence  those  evils  flowed,  than  all  vehement  party 
declamations  against  them,  which  being  written  without  sympathy 
for  the  right,  are  very  seldom  successful  in  detecting  the  wrong." 
*  *  p.  640. 

*  *  "  Through  terrible  conflicts,  in  spite  of  fearful  sins,  this  age 
(of  the  schoolmen)  had  been  really  effecting  its  work,  and  was  to 
leave  imperishable  tokens  for  the  generations  to  come.  The  first 
period  after  Christianity  had  left  the  form  of  a  universal  polity ; 
had  left  ordinances,  creeds,  ecclesiastical  institutions,  the  witnesses 
of  this  universal  polity,  the  powers  by  which  it  was  upheld,  and  by 
which  men  were  enabled  to  possess  and  enjoy  its  benefits ;  it  had 
left  records  of  the  oppositions  through  which  transcendent  and  uni- 
versal truths  had  been  maintained  and  confirmed ;  it  had  left  a 
literature  connecting  itself  with  the  former  literature  of  the  world, 
and  showing  that  what  therein  had  been  foretold  or  wished  for  had 
come  to  pass.  If  these  deposits  remained  and  remain  to  this  day, 
is  it  not  equally  true  that  those  middle  ages  have  left  their  deposits  ] 
National  societies  grown  up  from  infancy  to  manhood ;  the  forms 
of  law  established ;  languages  created  and  defined ;  new  forms  in- 
vented in  which  the  conceptions  of  men  could  clothe  themselves — 
forms  of  architecture,  of  poetry,  and  finally  of  painting ;  last,  and 
we  are  bound  to  say  not  least,  the  full  power  and  dimensions  of  the 
logical  faculty  in  man  ascertained  by  a  series  of  precious  experi- 


TO    LECTURE    VII.  365 

ments  determining  what  it  can  and  what  it  cannot  achieve.  For 
let  no  one  say  that  the  scholastic  philosophy  is  obsolete  in  its  effects, 
because  the  volumes  which  contain  it  are  seldom  read,  and  because 
it  has  been  found  to  have  failed  in  much  that  it  hoped  to  do.  Not 
the  feeblest  newspaper  scribe,  who  writes  praises  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  talks  about  the  discoveries  of  Bacon,  and  the  vain 
squabbles  by  which  men  were  distracted  till  his  time,  could  cast 
even  these  empty  phrases  into  a  coherent  and  intelligible  shape,  if 
those  schoolmen  whom  he  abuses  had  not  lived.  As  truly  as  we 
owe  our  laws  and  ecclesiastical  buildings  to  the  middle  ages,  so 
truly  do  we  owe  to  them  our  forms  of  thought  and  language.  We 
are  very  unhappy  if  we  have  not  learnt  much  since  that  time,  and 
we  shall  presently  have  to  show  in  what  direction  that  learning  has 
been  won.  But  in  fixing  the  terms  and  conditions  of  human  thought, 
we  are  bold  to  say,  that  men  have  only  done  any  thing  by  going  back 
to  these  schoolmen,  and  using  the  fresh  light  that  may  have  fallen 
upon  us  to  the  more  effectual  consideration  of  the  questions  which 
they  raised. 

"  When  one  reflects  on  these  facts,  men  may  surely  be  well  con- 
tent that  what  is  called  the  revival  of  letters  came  when  it  did,  and 
not  four  or  five  centuries  earlier.  Most  sad  would  it  have  been  for 
the  world,  if  the  western  nations,  instead  of  being  left  to  work  out 
a  cultivation  for  themselves  with  only  such  helps  from  ancient  lore 
as  best  suited  the  thoughts  which  were  awakening  in  them,  had 
been  overlaid  with  heaps  of  books,  in  which  their  circumstances 
gave  them  no  interest,  which  they  could  not  interpret  liviagly,  and 
which  would  therefore  have  crushed  all  sparks  of  native  and  origi- 
nal speculation.  When  that  revival  did  come,  the  inhabitants  of 
western  Europe  were  in  some  way  prepared  for  it — prepared  at 
least,  by  their  own  sense  of  a  national  position,  to  enter  into  the 
national  feelings,  and  the  thoughts  and  inquiries  accompanying  them, 
whereof  Grecian  books  are  the  exposition."  *  *  *  p.  647. 
1  Encyclopedia  Metropolitana?  vol.  ii.  of  '  Pure  Sciences :'  *  Moral  and 
Metaphysical  Philosophy,'  by  the  Rev.  FREDERICK  DENISON  MAURICE, 
Professor  of  English  Literature  and  History,  in  King's  College,  Lon- 
don. 

11  *  *  In  dealing  with  ancient  institutions  which  appear  to  have 

lost  their  efficacy,  there  are  two  courses.     The  narrow-minded,  the 

31* 


366  NOTES    TO    LECTURE    VII. 

men  of  mere  practical  understanding,  without  imagination  to  call  up 
those  manifold  relations  which  lie  beyond  the  span  of  the  under 
standing, — they  who  see  one  thing  clearly  and  distinctly,  and  who 
straightway  conclude  that  it  is  the  only  thing  to  be  seen,  who  walk 
between  two  high  walls,  and  suppose  that  the  whole  world  is  in- 
cluded between  them, — they  who  have  no  reverence  for  antiquity, 
no  faith  in  a  higher  spirit  guiding  and  shaping  the  actions  of  men, 
and  pervading  their  institutions, — they  who  trust  in  their  own  wis- 
dom and  in  their  own  will,  and  who  desire  to  see  that  wisdom  and 
that  will  reflected  in  every  thing  around  them, — will  destroy  the 
decayed  institution  as  worthless  to  set  up  some  creation  of  their 
own  in  its  stead.  They  on  the  other  hand  who  have  learnt  to  dis- 
trust their  own  wisdom,  and  to  suspect  their  will, — who  have  dis- 
covered the  limits  of  their  faculties,  and  how  narrow  they  are, — 
who  have  perceived  how  far  the  largest  part  of  what  is  valuable 
in  their  minds  is  owing  to  the  unnoticed  influences  of  the  thoughts 
and  principles  and  institutions  amid  which  they  have  grown  up, — 
they  who  have  discerned  that  in  nations  also,  and  in  other  bodies 
corporate,  there  is  a  kind  of  instinct,  whereby  they  seek  and  assimi- 
late what  is  suitable  and  healthful,  rejecting  what  is  noxious, — who 
have  discerned  that  in  nations  also  '  the  child  is  father  of  the  man,' 
and  that  the  only  sure  progress  of  national  life  lies  in  expansion  and 
transfiguration,  not  in  transmigration, — will  always  be  anxious  to 
preserve  the  institutions  which  their  fathers  have  left  them,  not 
however  in  their  worn-out,  dilapidated  state,  but  restored  to  com- 
pleteness and  vigour,  with  a  new  spirit  of  life  kindled  in  them." 
Archdeacon  JULIUS  CHARLES  HARE'S  '  Charge.'  1840. 


LECTURE  VIII. 


WE  have  now  for  some  time  been  engaged  in  analyzing 
the  statements  of  history,  in  order  to  the  more  clear  under- 
standing of  them  j  and  particularly  we  have  been  consider- 
ing the  forms  of  political  party  in  our  own  country,  with  a 
view  to  discover  what  in  them  has  been  accidental  and  what 
essential.  I  have  assumed  certain  facts  as  unquestionably 
true,  and  have  made  them  the  groundwork  of  what  I  have 
said,  either  to  account  for  them,  or  to  point  out  their  conse- 
quences. But  what  are  we  to  say,  if  these  facts  themselves 
are  disputed ;  if  we  are  taunted  with  the  known  exaggera- 
tions and  falsehoods  of  human  testimony ;  with  the  difficul- 
ties surrounding  all  investigation  of  human  actions,  even  if 
most  ably  and  fairly  conducted ;  and  with  the  many  defects 
of  individual  writers,  which  have  made  them,  as  investiga- 
tors, neither  able  nor  fair  ?  Or  are  these  objections  to  be 
met  by  saying,  that  although  the  truth  relating  to  past  ages 
be  difficult  to  discover,  yet  that  contemporary  history  is  at 
any  rate  entitled  to  confidence  ;  that  men  cannot  misrepresent 
in  the  face  of  detection ;  that  in  this  case  truth  may  be  dis- 
covered, and  cannot  but  be  declared  ?  Or  is  any  other  an- 
swer to  be  given,  maintaining  any  other  criterion ;  or  shall 
we  be  obliged  to  confess  the  unsoundness  of  all  our  goodly 
fabric ;  and  to  compare  historical  deductions,  however  logi- 
cal, to  the  elephant  in  the  well-known  apologue,  which  rested 
upon  a  tortoise,  and  the  tortoise  rested  upon  a  stone,  and  the 
stone  rested  upon  nothing  ? 

The  question  now  before  us  is  clearly  of  considerable  im- 


368  LECTURE   VIII. 

portance.  If  historical  testimony  be  really  worth  nothing, 
it  touches  us  in  one  of  the  very  divinest  parts  of  our  nature, 
the  power  of  connecting  ourselves  with  the  past.  For  this 
we  do  and  can  do  only  through  knowledge  which  we  must 
call  historical.  Without  such  knowledge,  what  would  the 
ancient  buildings  of  this  place  be  but  monuments  more  un- 
meaning than  the  Pictish  towers  of  Scotland  and  Ireland  ? 
They  would  not  tell  their  own  story  alone ;  they  would  only 
show  that  they  were  not  new,  and  by  examining  their  stones 
we  might  tell  out  of  what  quarries  it  had  been  hewn :  but  as 
to  all  that  constitutes  their  real  charm,  as  representing  to  us 
first  the  times  of  their  founders,  and  then  with  wonderful 
rapidity  the  successive  ages  which  have  since  passed,  amidst 
how  different  a  world  their  inmates  have,  generation  after 
generation,  trod  their  courts,  and  studied  in  their  chambers, 
and  worshipped  in  their  chapels, — all  this  would  be  utterly 
lost  to  us.  Our  life  would  be  at  once  restricted  to  the  span 
of  our  own  memory  ;  nay,  I  might  almost  say,  to  the  span  of 
our  own  actual  consciousness.  For  if  no  other  man's  report 
of  the  past  is  to  be  credited,  I  know  not  how  we  can  defend 
the  very  reports  of  our  own  memories.  They,  too,  unques- 
tionably are  fallible ;  they,  too,  very  often  are  perplexed  by 
vague  or  conflicting  recollections ;  we  cannot  tell  whether  we 
remember  or  no ;  nor  whether  we  remember  correctly.  And 
if  this  extreme  scepticism  be,  as  it  clearly  is,  absurd  even  to 
insanity,  yet  we  want  to  know  what  abatements  are  to  be 
made  from  it ;  where  it  not  only  ceases  to  be  insane,  but  be- 
comes reasonable  and  true ;  there  being  no  question  at  all 
that  we  have  been  often  deceived  with  false  accounts  of  the 
past ;  that  human  testimony  is  the  testimony  of  those  who 
are  often  deceived,  who  often  endeavour  to  deceive,  and  who 
perhaps  more  often  still  are  both  in  the  one  predicament  and 
the  other ;  not  loving  truth  sincerely,  and  at  the  same  time 
really  unable  to  discern  it. 


LECTURE    VIII.  369 

Now,  in  an  inquiry  into  the  credibility  of  history  in  the 
largest  sense  of  the  word,  the  first  question  which  we  will 
consider  is,  whether  any  composition  bearing  more  or  less  of 
an  historical  form,  be  really  historical  or  no,  in  the  intention 
of  its  author.  For  if  it  be  not,  then  if  we  accept  it  igno- 
rantly  as  such,  we  are  in  the  condition  of  those  persons  on 
whom  a  trick  has  been  played ;  our  belief  has  in  it  some- 
thing ludicrous,  like  theirs  who  innocently  fall  into  a  mis- 
chievous boy's  snare  on  the  first  of  April ;  and  although  in 
this  case  there  was  probably  no  mischief  intended,  yet  that 
makes  our  mistake  only  the  more  ridiculous,  if  we  went 
wrong  when  no  one  endeavoured  to  mislead  us.  Conceive 
one  of  the  historical  novels  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  surviving 
alone  amongst  its  companions  to  some  very  remote  age,  when 
the  greatest  part  of  our  literature  should  have  perished,  and 
all  knowledge  of  Scott  as  a  novelist  should  be  utterly  lost. 
Suppose  that  of  all  his  numerous  works  there  should  exist 
only  his  Life  of  Napoleon,  Paul's  Letters  to  his  Kinsfolk,  and 
his  novel  of  Woodstock.  Conceive  posterity  taking  all  the 
three  works  as  equally  historical ;  in  the  one,  it  might  be 
said  we  have  an  elaborate  narrative,  in  a  regular  historical 
form,  of  the  life  of  the  Emperor  Napoleon  ;  in  the  second  we 
have  a  most  lively  account  of  the  principal  events  of  his  sec- 
ond reign,  given  in  letters  written  at  the  time  and  from  the 
very  scene  of  action ;  while  in  the  third  we  have  a  narra- 
tive, taken  probably  from  some  ancient  chronicle,  and  there- 
fore much  more  dramatic  and  more  full  of  minute  details,  of 
some  passages  in  the  life  of  Charles  the  Second,  including 
the  story  of  his  wonderful  concealment  and  escape  after  the 
battle  of  Worcester.  It  would  then  be  received  as  fact,  that 
Charles,  after  his  escape  from  the  battle,  was  sheltered  and 
concealed  at  Woodstock,  and  that  Cromwell  himself  came 
down  to  Woodstock,  and,  guided  by  the  information  of  a  pre- 
tended royalist,  had  nearly  succeeded  in  surprising  him. 


370  IECTURE    VIII. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  book,  it  would  be  urged,  that  declares 
it  to  be  a  fiction ;  it  is  a  narrative  about  real  historical  per- 
sons ;  why  should  we  doubt  its  accuracy  ?  So  men  might 
argue,  and  might  be  led  into  a  mistake  which  to  us  appears 
altogether  ridiculous,  because  we  know  that  Woodstock  is  a 
novel ;  but  which  is  not  at  all  inconceivable  in  those  who 
centuries  afterwards  should  find  it  in  company  with  other 
works  of  the  same  author,  which  they  supposed  equally  to  be 
historical,  and  one  of  which  in  fact  is  so.  Now  there  are 
times  and  writings  in  which  all  narrative  bears  more  or  less 
the  character  of  an  historical  novel ;  it  may  contain  truth, 
and  often  does  so :  but  this  is  merely  accidental ;  the  writer's 
object  is  merely  to  amuse,  and  whether  his  story  happens  to 
be  authentic  or  not  gives  him  no  sort  of  concern.  Sometimes 
there  seems  to  be  absolutely  an  intention  to  mislead  the  sim- 
ple reader ;  not  a  malicious  or  fraudulent  intention,  for  any 
grave  ends  of  falsehood,  but,  as  appears,  only  for  the  mere 
joke's  sake  ;  for  the  pleasure  of  imposing  on  the  unsuspi- 
cious. Now,  wherever  this  spirit  may  at  all  be  supposed  to 
exist,  we  are  completely  falling  into  the  writer's  trap  if  we 
really  take  him  at  his  word,  as  if  he  were  in  earnest ;  and 
our  error  is  not  less,  if,  not  understanding  the  character  of 
narration,  whether  in  verse  or  prose,  at  the  particular  period, 
or  in  writers  of  a  certain  sort,  we  conceive  exactness  of  fact 
to  be  its  object,  instead  of  amusement,  or  possibly  some 
moral  or  religious  lesson  which  the  story  was  framed  to 
inculcate.  And  therefore  our  first  question  with  respect 
to  a  story  or  narrative  should  be,  was  the  writer  in  earnest 
or  in  jest?  and  if  in  earnest,  was  he  in  earnest  as  to  the 
facts  or  as  to  the  moral  conveyed  by  the  facts  ?  For  he 
may  have  been  very  earnest  indeed  as  a  poet,  or  as  a 
moral  teacher,  or  as  inculcating  some  deep  religious  truth 
under  a  symbolical  veil,  and  yet  not  at  all  in  earnest  as  a 
matter-of-fact  historian.  This  question  is  one  of  great  im. 


LECTURE    VIII.  371 

portance  to  put,  and  unhappily  it  is  not  always  easy  to  find 
the  answer  to  it. 

You  will  see  where  the  difficulty  lies,  if  you  consider  the 
case  which  I  supposed,  of  some  future  age  mistaking  Wood- 
stock for  an  authentic  history.  We  do  not  mistake  it,  chiefly 
I  think  for  certain  external  reasons ;  that  it  is  published  as  a 
novel,  and  has  always  been  received  as  such ;  and  farther, 
because  we  are  familiar  with  many  other  works  of  the  same 
sort,  so  that  the  notion  of  an  historical  novel  is  one  which 
readily  occurs  to  us.  But  ancient  books  do  not  tell  us  the 
story  of  their  publication ;  we  do  not  know  how  they  were 
received  by  their  original  readers,  nor  are  specimens  of  the 
literature  of  the  time  sufficiently  numerous  to  enable  us  to 
conceive  readily  what  form  they  would  be  likely  to  assume. 
It  does  not  seem  possible,  therefore,  always  to  have  a  sure 
criterion  whether  a  given  narrative  be  historical  or  no ;  or 
at  any  rate,  to  have  such  a  criterion  as  may  be  applied  by 
ordinary  readers ;  such  as  is  palpable  and  tangible,  or  to  use 
the  German  expression,  handgreiflich.  A  criterion  there  is 
indeed,  not  of  course  unerring,  yet  generally  to  be  relied 
upon,  in  the  instinctive  tact  of  those  who  are  much  conver- 
sant with  the  narratives  of  early  times,  and  with  the  charac- 
ter of  undoubted  history,  and  who  feel  at  once  where  they 
have  history,  and  where  they  have  poetry,  or  apologue,  or 
allegory,  or  a  story  careless  of  fact  and  aiming  only  at  truth, 
or  it  may  be,  seeking  neither  fact  nor  truth,  but  simply  to 
amuse  and  astonish  its  readers.  This  feeling  in  a  sensible 
man  is,  I  believe,  very  much  to  be  relied  upon ;  but  you  can- 
not justify  it  to  those  who  dispute  it;  you  cannot  establish  it 
upon  tangible  evidence,  appreciable  by  the  ignorant  no  less 
than  by  the  wise. 

For  the  greater  part  of  modern  history,  however,  the  ques- 
tion which  we  have  now  been  considering  will  not  give  us 
any  trouble.  Yet  it  presents  itself,  I  think,  in  some  of  the 


372  LECTURE    VIII. 

ecclesiastical  biographies,  where  we  find  not  unfrequently 
grotesque  touches,  to  say  nothing  of  other  matters,  such  as 
leave  great  room  for  doubting  whether  their  authors  ever 
meant  them  to  be  taken  as  simple  matter-of-fact  narratives. 
The  human  mind  so  shrinks  from  undisguised  and  unpallia- 
ted  falsehood,  that  it  is  generally  safer  as  well  as  more  char- 
itable, when  we  are  reading  a  narrative  which  it  is  impossible 
to  believe,  to  suppose  that  the  writer  himself  did  not  mean  it 
to  be  taken  seriously ;  regarding  the  facts  at  best  as  the  or- 
nament, or,  if  you  will,  as  a  sort  of  conventional  expression 
of  what  he  did  believe  to  be  a  truth,  namely,  the  sanctity  of 
the  subject  of  his  biography.  We  may  call  this,  if  we  will, 
a  species  of  pious  fraud ;  but  at  any  rate,  its  guilt  is  much 
less  than  it  would  be  now,  inasmuch  as  it  would  not  be  equal- 
ly regarded  as  a  bringing  forward  false  evidence  to  establish 
a  conclusion.  The  moment  that  facts  come  to  be  regarded 
in  the  light  of  essential  evidence,  without  which  our  conclu- 
sion falls,  then  all  tampering  with  or  exaggerating  them  is  a 
gross  fraud,  to  be  condemned  with  no  qualification  what- 
ever. (1)  But  I  should  doubt  whether  the  spirit  of  the  well- 
known  story  of  the  man  who,  when  told  that  the  facts  were 
wholly  at  variance  with  his  theory,  replied,  Tant  pis  pour  les 
fails,  was  not  very  generally  prevalent  before  the  time  of 
Bacon,  in  more  matters  than  in  natural  philosophy.  (2) 
Principles  of  science  were  assumed  on  a  priori  reasoning ; 
and  opinions  in  theology  were  held  in  the  same  manner,  not 
indeed  upon  reasoning  of  any  kind  so  much  as  upon  author- 
ity, but  yet  independently  of  any  supposed  proof  to  be  looked 
for  from  particular  miracles.  This  consideration  is  perhaps 
worth  attending  to,  as  it  may  in  some  measure  account  for  a 
carelessness  as  to  the  truth  of  facts  which  otherwise  would 
be  merely  scandalous ;  and  allows  us  to  qualify  as  fictions 
what  we  otherwise  should  be  obliged  to  call  falsehoods. 
Passing  on,  then,  to  narratives  which  propose  to  be  histori- 


LECTURE    VIII.  373 

cal,  that  is,  where  stress  is  understood  to  be  laid  upon  the 
facts,  and  it  is  the  writer's  avowed  object  to  represent  these 
faithfully,  and  we  ask  under  what  circumstances  and  to  what 
degree  can  we  maintain  their  credibility.  And  first,  let  us 
consider  what  are  the  claims  of  a  writer  upon  our  belief, 
merely  on  the  strength  of  his  being  contemporary  with  the 
events  which  he  relates. 

That  a  contemporary  writer  cannot  avoid  giving  us  some 
correct  and  valuable  impressions  of  his  times,  is  evident. 
For  such  points  of  detail  as  an  antiquarian  delights  in,  he 
may  be  fully  relied  upon ;  and  he  himself  is  at  any  rate  an 
authentic  portrait ;  his  own  mind,  with  its  peculiar  leanings, 
his  own  language,  with  its  peculiar  style  and  forms  of  words, 
these  must  certainly  be  drawn  faithfully,  because  drawn  un- 
consciously ;  and  we  cannot  doubt  their  witness.  But  be- 
yond this,  and  for  historical  facts  properly  so  called,  the 
value  of  a  contemporary  historian  is  often  greatly  overrated. 
No  man  sees  the  whole  of  his  own  times,  any  more  than  an 
officer  in  action  sees  the  whole  of  the  battle.  Some  are  too 
busy  to  contemplate  society  in  all  its  relations ;  others  are 
too  abstracted  from  it  altogether.  With  regard  to  public 
events,  ordinary  men  are  but  in  a  very  slight  degree  wit- 
nesses of  them :  the  councils  of  governments,  the  secret 
springs  of  parties,  are  known  only  to  a  few ;  military  and 
naval  events  take  place  publicly  indeed,  but  often  at  a  great 
distance,  and  though  they  may  happen  in  our  time,  yet  our 
knowledge  of  them  only  comes  from  the  reports  of  others. 
Again,  it  should  be  remembered,  that  many  things  which 
we  have  seen  and  heard  we  forget  afterwards :  that  although 
we  were  contemporary  with  the  events  which  took  place  ten 
years  ago,  yet  that  we  are  not  perhaps  contemporary  with 
them  when  we  relate  them ;  even  what  we  ourselves  said 
and  did  is  no  longer  present  to  us ;  our  witness  is  that  of  one 
living  after  the  event.  (3)  To  this  must  be  added  disadvan- 

32 


374  LECTURE    VIII. 

tages  which  are  generally  recognised ;  the  livelier  state  of 
passion  to  which  a  contemporary  is  liable,  the  veil  hanging 
over  many  characters  and  over  the  causes  of  many  actions, 
which  only  after-ages  will  see  removed.  So  that  on  the 
whole,  it  is  by  no  means  sufficient  to  known  that  a  history 
was  written  by  a  contemporary ;  it  may  have  been  so,  and 
yet  may  be  of  very  little  value ;  full  of  idle  reports  and  un- 
examined  stories,  giving  the  first  obvious  view  of  things, 
which  a  little  more  observation  would  have  shown  to  be  far 
from  the  true  one. 

Ascending  a  step  higher,  and  supposing  an  historian  to  be 
not  merely  contemporary  with  the  events  which  he  relates, 
but  an  actual  witness  of  them,  his  credibility  no  doubt  be- 
comes much  greater.  We  must  distinguish,  however,  be- 
tween what  I  may  call  an  active  and  a  passive  witness.  I 
call  a  passive  witness  one  who  was  present,  but  took  no  part 
in  the  actions  described ;  as  for  instance,  Edward  the  Fourth's 
chaplain,  who  has  left  us  an  account  of  King  Edward's 
landing  in  England  after  Warwick  had  obliged  him  to  fly, 
of  his  march  towards  London,  and  of  the  decisive  battle  of 
Barnet.  This  is  a  witness  in  the  lowest  degree,  from  which 
we  ascend,  according  as  the  direct  interest  and  share  in  the 
transactions  related  is  greater,  up  to  the  highest  sort  of  wit- 
ness ;  namely,  the  main  agent  and  director  of  the  actions. 
Here  we  have  knowledge  as  nearly  perfect  as  possible ;  a 
full  understanding  of  the  action  in  all  its  bearings,  a  view  of 
its  different  parts  in  connection  with  each  other ;  and  a  clear 
perception  and  recollection  of  each,  because  our  knowledge 
of  one  helps  us  to  remember  another,  and  because  we  our- 
selves directed  them.  And  thus  in  the  case  of  Caesar  and 
the  Emperor  Napoleon  we  have  witnesses,  to  whose  know, 
ledge  of  the  actions  which  they  relate,  nothing,  as  it  seems, 
could  be  added.  Yet  we  should  not  be  justified  in  viewing 
the  Commentaries  of  the  one  or  the  Memoirs  of  the  other  as 


LECTURE    VIII.  375 

perfectly  trustworthy  histories ;  on  the  contrary,  few  narra- 
tives require  to  be  read  with  more  constant  and  vigilant  sus- 
picion. For  unhappily  a  knowledge  of  the  truth  does  not 
imply  an  intention  of  uttering  it ;  it  may  be,  on  the  contrary, 
that  he  who  knows  perfectly  the  real  state  of  the  case  should 
find  it  to  his  interest  to  represent  it  altogether  differently,  and 
his  knowledge  then  does  but  enable  him  to  misrepresent 
more  artfully.  And  as  in  the  infirmity  of  human  nature  no 
man's  actions  are  always  what  he  likes  to  look  back  upon, 
as  there  are  points  in  which  he  would  wish  that  he  had  acted 
otherwise ;  so  every  man  who  tells  his  own  story  is  under  a 
temptation  more  or  less  to  disguise  the  truth :  and  the  more, 
in  proportion  as  his  actions  have  been  upon  a  larger  scale, 
and  his  faults  or  mistakes  therefore  have  been  more  flagrant. 
Yet  do  we  not  lose  entirely  the  benefit  of  a  writer's  know- 
ledge, even  when  his  honesty  is  most  questionable.  He  who 
always  can  tell  the  truth  when  he  has  a  mind  to  do  so,  will 
tell  it  very  often,  because  in  a  great  many  instances  he  has 
no  conceivable  interest  in  departing  from  it.  Thus  Caesar's 
descriptions  of  countries  have  always  been  held  to  be  of  high 
value  ;  for  in  them  we  have  all  the  benefit  of  his  intelligence, 
with  nothing  to  be  deducted  on  account  of  his  want  of  prin- 
ciple. And  so  again  in  relating  his  own  military  conduct, 
as  it  was  mostly  so  admirable  that  to  relate  it  most  truly  was 
to  praise  it  most  eloquently,  his  knowledge  gives  us  every 
thing  that  we  can  desire.  The  same  may  be  said  of  Napo- 
leon :  his  sketch  of  the  geography  of  Syria,  and  of  that  of 
Italy,  his  account  of  Egypt,  and  his  detail  of  his  proceedingj 
at  the  siege  of  Toulon,  are  all  most  excellent.  The  latter  in 
particular,  his  account  of  the  siege  of  Toulon,  is  a  complete 
specimen  of  what  is  valuable  and  what  is  suspicious  in  his 
narratives.  His  description  of  the  topography  of  Toulon, 
and  of  his  own  views  in  recommending  the  attack  on  Fort 
Malbosquet,  as  the  point  where  the  enemy's  operations  might 


376  LECTURE    VIII. 

be  impeded  most  effectually,  is  all  clear  and  admirable ;  but 
his  statement  of  the  enemy's  force  in  Fort  Malbosquet,  and 
of  the  assault  itself,  is  to  be  regarded  with  suspicion ;  be- 
cause his  object  not  being  truth,  but  his  own  glory,  he  never 
puts  himself  for  an  instant  in  the  place  of  an  impartial  spec- 
tator, to  consider  what  were  the  disadvantages  of  his  enemy, 
but  rather  is  inclined  to  exaggerate  and  multiply  all  his  ad- 
vantages, in  order  to  represent  the  victory  over  him  as  more 
honourable.  (4) 

Thus  neither  is  perfect  knowledge  a  guarantee  for  entire 
trustworthiness.  Still  let  us  consider  for  how  much  it  is  a 
guarantee,  namely,  for  truth  in  all  indifferent  matters,  indif- 
ferent I  mean  to  the  writer  or  to  his  party ;  and  for  much 
truth  easily  to  be  discerned  from  its  colourings,  in  matters 
that  concern  him  nearly.  And  so  again,  a  writer's  nearness 
to  the  times  of  which  he  treats  is  a  warrant,  not  for  his  com- 
plete  trustworthiness,  but  yet  for  accurate  painting  of  the 
outsides  of  things,  at  any  rate ;  he  cannot  help  telling  us 
much  that  we  can  depend  on,  whatever  be  his  own  personal 
qualifications.  So  in  all  historians,  the  mere  outline  of  events 
is  generally  credible,  and  speaking  of  modern  history,  we 
can  always  also,  or  almost  always,  trust  to  the  dates.  We 
get  everywhere  therefore  a  certain  portion  of  truth,  only 
more  or  less  corrupted;  but  what  we  want  to  know  is, 
whether  there  be  any  qualification  in  an  historian  which 
will  give  us  more  than  this ;  which  will  enable  us  to  trust  to 
him  all  but  implicitly ;  without  any  one  positive  deduction 
from  his  credibility,  but  merely  with  an  acknowledgment 
that  being  human  he  is  therefore  fallible,  and  that  if  sufficient 
reasons  exist  for  doubting  his  authority  in  any  one  point,  we 
should  not  insist  at  all  hazards  on  maintaining  it. 

Now  this  one  great  qualification  in  an  historian  is  an 
earnest  craving  after  truth,  and  utter  impatience  not  of  false- 
hood merely  but  of  error.  This  is  a  very  different  thing,  be 


LECTURE    VIII.  377 

it  observed,  from  a  mere  absence  of  dishonesty  or  partiality. 
Many  minds  like  the  truth  a  great  deal  better  than  falsehood 
when  the  two  are  set  before  them ;  they  will  tell  a  story 
fairly  with  great  pleasure,  if  it  be  told  fairly  to  them.  But 
not  being  impatient  and  intolerant  of  error,  they  suffer  it  to 
exist  undiscovered  when  no  one  points  it  out  to  them  :  not 
having  a  deep  craving  after  truth  they  rest  easily  satisfied 
with  truth's  counterfeit.  This  is  the  ctraXai-rw^ia  #£o£  <n}v 
^TTjrfiv  TTJS  d\fi&sias  of  which  Thucydides  complains  so  truly, 
and  which,  far  more  than  active  dishonesty,  is  the  source  of 
most  of  the  error  that  prevails  in  the  world.  (5)  And  this 
fault  in  some  degree  is  apt  to  beset  us  all ;  for  it  is  with  truth 
as  with  goodness,  none  of  us  love  it  so  heartily  as  to  be  at  all 
times  ready  to  take  any  pains  to  arrive  at  it,  as  to  question 
its  counterfeit  when  it  wears  an  aspect  of  plausibility.  For 
example,  there  is  a  story  which  has  become  famous  all  over 
Europe,  repeated  from  one  historian  to  another,  and  from  one 
country  to  another,  which  is  yet  totally  untrue.  I  mean  the 
famous  story  of  the  crew  of  the  French  ship  Le  Vengeur  in 
the  action  of  the  first  of  June,  1794,  refusing  to  strike  their 
colours,  and  fighting  their  ship  till  she  went  down,  and  at  the 
very  moment  that  she  was  sinking  shouting  with  one  voice, 
Vive  la  Republique  !  Even  Mr.  Carlyle  repeated  this  story 
in  his  history  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  I  have  seen  it 
within  the  last  month  in  a  very  able  German*  work  published 
only  last  year,  given  as  a  remarkable  instance  of  the  heroism 
of  the  French  sailors  no  less  than  of  their  soldiers  during  the 
war  of  the  -Revolution.  Not  for  one  moment  would  I  deny 
the  conclusion ;  the  heroic  defence  of  the  Guillaume  Tell 
against  a  British  squadron  off  Malta  in  1800,  and  of  the 
Redoutable  in  the  battle  of  Trafalgar,  throw  a  glory  on  the 
courage  of  French  seamen,  which  needs  not  to  be  heightened 

*  Der  zweite  Pujiische  Krieg  und  der  Kriegsplan  der  Carthager.    Von 
Ludwig,  Freiherrn  von  Vincke.    Berlin,  1841. 

32* 


378  LECTURE    VIII. 

by  apocryphal  instances  of  their  self-devotion.  But  when 
Mr.  Carlyle's  book  appeared,  one  of  the  surviving  British 
officers  who  were  in  the  action  of  the  first  of  June  wrote  to  him 
to  assure  him  that  the  story  was  wholly  without  foundation. 
Upon  this  Mr.  Carlyle  commenced  a  careful  inquiry  into  it, 
and  the  point  which  is  encouraging  is  this,  that  although  the 
story  related  to  an  event  nearly  fifty  years  old,  still  the  means 
were  found,  when  sought,  of  effectually  disproving  it ;  for 
the  official  letter  of  the  French  captain  of  Le  Vengeur  to  the 
Committee  of  Public  Safety  still  exists,  and  on  reference  to 
it,  it  appeared  that  it  was  written  on  board  of  a  British  ship  ; 
that  the  Vengeur  had  struck,*  and  that  her  captain  and  some 
of  her  men  had  been  removed  out  of  her,  and  some  British 
seamen  sent  on  board  to  take  possession.  She  sank,  it  is 
true,  and  many  of  her  crew  were  lost  in  her ;  but  she  sank 
as  a  British  prize,  and  the  British  party  who  had  taken  pos- 
session of  her  were  unhappily  lost  in  her  also.  The  fictitious 
statement  was  merely  one  of  Barrere's  accustomed  flourishes, 
inserted  by  him  in  his  report  of  the  action,  and  from  thence 
copied  by  French  writers  first,  and  afterwards  by  foreigners. 
Now  here  was  a  case  where  the  truth  was  found  with  perfect 
ease  as  soon  as  it  was  sought  after ;  and  the  story  might 
have  been  suspected  from  the  quarter  in  which  it  originally 
appeared,  as  also  from  its  internal  character ;  for  although 
cases  of  the  most  heroic  self-devotion  in  war  are  nothing 
strange  or  suspicious,  yet  there  was  a  theatrical  display  about 

*  It  so  happened  that  I  had  been  myself  aware  of  the  falsehood  of  the  com- 
mon story  for  many  years,  and  was  sorry  to  see  it  repeated  by  Mr.  Carlyle  in 
his  History  of  the  French  Revolution.  It  is  more  than  thirty  years  since  I 
read  a  MS.  account  of  the  part  taken  by  H.  M.  S.  Brunswick,  Captain  John 
Harvey,  in  the  action  of  the  first  of  June.  The  account  was  drawn  up  by  one 
of  the  surviving  officers  of  the  Brunswick,  Captain  Harvey  having  been  mor- 
tally wounded  in  the  action,  and  was  in  the  possession  of  Captain  Harvey's 
family.  It  was  very  circumstantial,  and  as  the  Vengeur  was  particularly 
engaged  with  the  Brunswick,  it  necessarily  described  her  fate,  and  effectually 
contradicted  the  story  invented  by  Barrere. 


LECTURE    VIII.  379 

this  story  which  did  call  for  examination.  And  as  in  this 
instance,*  so  it  is  I  think  generally  :  that  where  there  is  not 
merely  a  willingness  to  receive  the  truth,  but  a  real  earnest 
desire  to  discover  it,  the  truth  may  almost  surely  be  found. 

I  suppose  then  that  what  is  wanted  to  constitute  a  trust- 
worthy historian,  is  such  an  active  impatience  of  error  and 
desire  of  truth.  And  it  will  be  seen  at  once  that  these  quali- 
ties are  intellectual  as  well  as  moral,  and  are  as  incompatible 
with  great  feebleness  of  mind  as  they  are  with  dishonesty. 
For  a  feeble  mind,  and  the  same  holds  good  also  of  an  igno- 
rant mind,  is  by  no  means  impatient  of  error,  because  it  does 
not  readily  suspect  it ;  it  may  reject  it  when  it  is  made  to 
notice  it,  but  otherwise  it  suffers  it  patiently  and  confounds  it 
with  truth.  Now  if  this  love  of  truth  will  make  a  trust- 
worthy historian,  so  it  will  enable  us  no  less  to  judge  of  what 
is  trustworthy  history ;  and  to  suspect  error  on  the  one  hand, 
and  to  appreciate  truth  on  the  other ;  and  if  it  will  not  enable 
us  to  discover  what  the  truth  is,  supposing  that  it  has  nowhere 
been  given,  for  then  it  can  only  be  discovered  by  direct  his- 
torical researches  of  our  own,  yet  to  miss  the  truth  where  it 
really  is  not,  is  in  itself  no  mean  knowledge,  and  the  same 

*  The  interest  which  we  all  feel  in  every  thing  relating  to  Nelson  will  be  a 
sufficient  excuse  for  my  inserting  in  this  place  a  correction  of  a  statement  in 
Southey's  Life  of  him,  which,  as  there  given,  imputes  a  very  unworthy  and 
childieh  vanity  to  him,  of  which  on  that  particular  occasion  he  was  wholly 
innocent.  It  is  said  that  Nelson  wore  on  the  day  of  the  action  of  Trafalgar, 
"his  admiral's  frock  coat,  bearing  on  the  left  breast  four  stars,"  that  his  offi- 
cers wished  to  speak  to  him  on  the  subject,  but  were  afraid  to  do  so,  knowing 
that  it  was  useless ;  he  having  said  on  a  former  occasion,  when  requested  to 
change  his  dress  or  to  cover  his  stars,  "  In  honour  I  gained  them,  and  in  hon- 
our I  will  die  with  them."  The  truth  is,  that  Nelson  wore  on  the  day  of 
Trafalgar  the  same  coat  which  he  had  commonly  woni  for  weeks,  on  which 
the  order  of  the  Bath  was  embroidered,  as  was  then  usual.  Sir  Thomas  Hardy 
did  notice  it  to  him,  observing  that  he  was  afraid  the  badge  might  be  marked 
by  the  enemy ;  to  which  Nelson  replied,  "  that  he  was  aware  of  that,  but  that 
it  was  too  late  then  to  shift  a  coat."  This  account  rests  on  the  authority  of 
Sir  Thomas  Hardy,  from  whom  it  was  heard  by  Captain  Smyth,  and  by  him 
tommunicated  to  me. 


380  LECTURE    VIII. 

power  which  enables  us  to  do  this  will  enable  us  also,  to  a 
considerable  degree,  to  discern  where  the  truth  lies  hid,  if 
we  have  not  ourselves  the  time  or  the  opportunity  to  bring  it 
to  light. 

First  of  all  then,  in  estimating  whether  any  history  is 
trustworthy  or  no,  I  should  not  ask  whether  it  was  written  by 
a  contemporary,  or  by  one  engaged  in  the  transactions  which 
it  describes,  but  whether  it  was  written  by  one  who  loves  the 
truth  with  all  his  heart,  and  cannot  endure  error.  For  such 
a  one,  we  may  be  sure,  would  never  attempt  to  write  a  his- 
tory if  he  had  no  means  of  writing  it  truly ;  and  therefore 
although  distant  in  time  or  place,  or  both,  from  the  events 
which  he  describes,  yet  we  may  be  satisfied  that  he  had 
sources  of  good  information  at  his  command,  or  else  that  he 
would  never  have  written  at  all. 

Such  an  historian  is  not  indeed  infallible,  or  exempt  from 
actual  error,  but  yet  he  is  deserving  of  the  fullest  confidence 
in  his  general  narrative ;  to  be  believed  safely,  unles«  we 
happen  to  have  very  strong  reasons  for  doubting  him  in  any 
one  particular  point.  But  such  historians  are  in  the  highest 
degree  rare ;  and  the  question  practically  is,  how  can  we 
supply  their  want,  and  by  the  same  qualities  of  mind  in  our- 
selves, can  extract  a  trustworthy  history  from  that  which  in 
itself  is  not  completely  trustworthy ;  setting  aside  the  rub- 
bish and  fastening  upon  the  fragments  of  precious  stone  which 
may  be  mixed  up  with  it.  Let  the  historian  be  whoever  he 
may,  and  if  he  does  not  appear  to  belong  to  the  class  of  those 
who  are  essentially  trustworthy,  let  us  subject  him  to  some 
such  examination  as  the  following. 

His  date,  his  country,  and  the  circumstances  of  his  life, 
may  be  easily  learned  from  a  common  biographical  dic- 
tionary ;  and  though  these  points  are  not  of  the  greatest 
importance  of  all,  yet  they  are  useful  as  intimating  what 
particular  influences  we  may  suspect  to  have  been  at  work 


LECTURE    VIII.  381 

upon  his  mind,  and  where  therefore  we  should  be  particu- 
larly upon  our  guard.  But  the  main  thing  to  look  to  is  of 
course  his  work  itself.  Here  the  very  style  gives  us  an  im- 
pression by  no  means  to  be  despised.  If  it  is  very  heavy 
and  cumbrous,  it  indicates  either  a  dull  man,  or  a  pompous 
man,  or  at  least  a  slow  and  awkward  man ;  if  it  be  tawdry 
and  full  of  commonplaces  enunciated  with  great  solemnity, 
the  writer  is  most  likely  a  silly  man  ;  if  it  be  highly  anti- 
thetical, and  full  of  unusual  expressions,  or  artificial  ways 
of  stating  a  plain  thing,  the  writer  is  clearly  an  affected 
man.  If  it  be  plain  and  simple,  always  clear,  but  never 
eloquent,  the  writer  may  be  a  very  sensible  man,  but  is  too 
hard  and  dry  to  be  a  very  great  man.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
it  is  always  eloquent,  rich  in  illustrations,  full  of  animation, 
but  too  uniformly  so,  and  without  the  relief  of  simple  and 
quiet  passages,  we  must  admire  the  writer's  genius  in  a  very 
high  degree,  but  we  may  fear  that  he  is  too  continually  ex- 
cited to  have  attained  to  the  highest  wisdom ;  for  that  is 
necessarily  calm.  (6)  In  this  manner  the  mere  language 
of  an  historian  will  furnish  us  with  something  of  a  key  to 
his  mind,  and  will  tell  us,  or  at  least  give  us  cause  to  pre- 
sume, in  what  his  main  strength  lies,  and  in  what  he  is  de- 
ficient. (7) 

The  style  of  a  book  impresses  us  immediately ;  but  pro- 
ceeding to  the  matter,  it  is  of  importance  to  observe  from 
what  sources  the  historian  has  derived  his  information.  This 
we  ought  always  to  be  able  to  discover,  by  looking  at  the 
authorities  referred  to  in  the  margin  or  at  the  bottom  of  the 
page ;  it  is  a  most  unpardonable  fault  if  these  are  omitted. 
We  should  consider  these  authorities  as  to  quantity  and  quali- 
ty ;  as  to  quantity,  for  if  they  are  but  few,  we  may  feel  sure 
that  the  historian's  knowledge  is  meagre :  the  materials  for 
modern  history  are  ample,  and  if  only  a  few  out  of  so  many 
have  been  consulted,  the  historian  is  not  equal  to  his  task. 


382  LECTURE    VIII. 

Consider  the  richness  and  variety  of  Gibbon's  references,  and 
of  Niebuhr's  even  more,  when  we  know  how  few  the  obvious 
sources  were  for  the  period  with  which  he  was  engaged.  (8) 
Then  as  to  quality,  we  should  observe,  first,  whether  they 
consist  of  writers  of  one  country  or  of  several,  of  all  the 
countries,  that  is,  to  which  the  history  directly  relates ;  sec- 
ondly, whether  they  consist  of  historians  only,  or  whether 
more  miscellaneous  sources  of  information  have  been  referred 
to ;  thirdly,  what  is  the  character  of  the  authorities  most  re- 
lied on.  Are  they  really  the  best  that  could  have  been 
found  or  no  ?  and  if  they  are,  then  what  are  their  particular 
qualities  and  tendencies  ?  was  the  historian  aware  of  these, 
and  on  his  guard  against  them,  or  no  ?  By  this  process  we 
shall  be  enabled  to  estimate  the  depth  and  richness  of  our 
historian's  knowledge,  and  also  in  some  measure  his  judg- 
ment as  shown  in  the  choice  of  his  authorities,  and  in  his 
appreciation  of  their  just  value,  knowing  where  they  might 
be  trusted  implicitly  and  where  suspected. 

We  may  now  carry  our  judgment  a  little  farther,  by  ex- 
amining an  historian  in  greater  detail ;  by  observing  him  as 
a  military  historian,  we  will  say,  as  an  historian  of  political 
contests,  as  an  historian  of  church  matters,  and  so  on.  In 
military  history,  for  instance,  there  is  first  the  question,  Is  he 
a  good  geographer  ?  for  if  not,  he  cannot  be  a  good  military 
historian.  (9)  Next  let  us  observe  his  temper;  Does  he 
love  exaggerations,  does  he  give  us  accounts  of  a  handful  of 
men  defeating  a  multitude ;  is  one  side  always  victorious  and 
always  heroic,  is  the  other  always  defeated,  always  cruel, 
or  blundering,  or  cowardly  ?  (10)  Or  is  he  an  unbeliever  in 
all  heroism,  a  man  who  brings  every  thing  down  to  the  level 
of  a  common  mediocrity ;  to  whose  notions,  soldiers  care  for 
nothing  but  pay  or  plunder,  and  war  is  an  expensive  folly, 
with  no  fruit  but  an  empty  glory  ?  (11)  Depend  upon  it  that 
the  truth  has  not  been  found  by  writers  of  either  of  these  two 


LECTURE    Mil.  383 

classes.  And  so  in  political  history.  Is  the  historian  a 
master  of  his  science,  can  he  separate  the  perpetual  from  the 
temporary,  the  essential  from  the  accidental ;  in  the  strife  of 
parties,  does  he  understand  the  game  or  describe  the  moves 
at  random  ?  Party  partialities,  if  they  do  not  agree  with  our 
own,  we  are  apt  enough  to  suspect,  and  even  to  exaggerate ; 
but  do  we  rightly  know  what  partiality  is  ?  Do  we  confound 
a  decided  preference  for  one  cause  above  another,  with  a 
misrepresentation  of  the  acts  and  characters  of  the  men  en- 
gaged ;  and  think  that  a  writer  cannot  be  impartial  unless 
he  is  really  ignorant  or  indifferent  ?  It  is  partiality  if  our 
love  of  the  cause  blind  us  to  the  faults  of  its  supporters,  or 
our  hatred  of  the  cause  make  us  unjust  to  the  virtues  of  its 
advocates.  But  it  is  not  partiality  to  say  that  the  support  of 
a  bad  cause  is  itself  evil,  the  support  of  a  good  cause  is  itself 
good.  It  is  not  partiality  to  say,  that  the  self-same  political 
acts,  as  for  example  acts  of  sovereign  power  exercised  be- 
yond the  ordinary  law,  are,  according  to  the  cause  for  which 
they  are  done,  either  to  be  justified  or  condemned  ;  and  the 
actor  is  to  be  justified  or  condemned  personally,  according  to 
the  cause  for  which  he  acted,  and  the  purity  of  his  own  mo- 
tives in  acting,  as  shown  by  his  subsequent  conduct.  Of 
course  this  does  not  in  the  least  degree  apply  to  actions 
morally  wrong,  such  as  falsehood,  or  individual  injustice,  or 
cruelty ;  for  to  make  the  end  justify  such,  were  to  hold  that 
evil  may  be  done  that  good  may  come.  But  in  political 
actions  the  moral  character  of  the  act  depends  mainly  on  the 
object  and  motive  of  it ;  the  written  law  may  yield  to  the 
higher  unwritten  law,  but  not  to  selfish  tyranny  or  injustice. 
Undoubtedly  in  such  cases  the  temptations  to  the  actor  and 
to  the  historian  are  obvious;  injustice  in  deed  and  in  judg- 
ment lie  with  both  close  at  the  door.  Nevertheless  if  there 
be  such  a  thing  as  political  truth,  a  good  arid  an  evil  in  the 
internal  contests  of  parties,  it  seems  certain  that  what  would 


384  LECTURE    VIII. 

pretend  to  be  impartiality  is  very  often  ignorance  or  indif- 
ferentism,  and  that  an  historian  may  be  called  partial  by  the 
vulgar,  when  he  is  in  fact  only  seeing  more  clearly  and 
weighing  more  evenly  the  respective  claims  of  truth  and 
falsehood,  good  and  evil.  (12) 

Such  an  examination  will  enable  us,  I  think,  sometimes  to 
discover  with  certainty,  and  always  to  suspect  with  proba- 
bility, where  an  historian's  narrative  is  untrustworthy.  And 
where  it  seems  to  be  so,  there  we  should  compare  it  with 
some  other  narrative,  written,  if  it  may  be,  by  an  author  of 
opinions  very  unlike  those  of  our  first  historian.  If  the  sus- 
pected defect  relate  to  some  particular  matter  of  fact,  then 
to  check  it  is  of  course  easy ;  if  it  consist  in  general  mea- 
gerness  or  poverty  of  information,  another  history  by 
different  writer  will  most  probably  make  up  its  deficiencies ; 
if  it  consist  in  a  wrong  and  narrow  judgment  of  the  whole 
state  of  things  described,  an  opposite  view  may  in  part  at 
least  correct  this  also.  But  it  should  be  remembered  that 
for  the  mere  outline  of  events,  which  is  all  that  we  need  for 
many  portions  of  history,  all  historians  are  trustworthy ;  the 
difficulty  does  but  relate  to  details,  and  occurs  therefore  but 
rarely  ;  for,  as  I  have  said  before,  it  is  absolutely  impossible 
to  study  the  mass  of  history  in  detail,  we  must  be  contented 
to  know  the  mere  heads  of  it,  and  to  reserve  minute  inquiries 
into  it  for  the  time  when  we  shall  have  some  particular  call 
to  study  it. 

After  all,  history  presents  to  many  minds  an  unsatisfactory 
aspect,  because  it  is  a  perpetual  study  of  particulars,  without 
any  certainly  acknowledged  law;  and  though  our  know- 
ledge of  general  laws  may  here,  as  well  as  in  natural 
science,  be  drawn  from  an  induction  of  particular  instances, 
yet  it  is  not  in  natural  science  required  of  every  student  to 
go  through  this  process  for  himself;  the  laws  have  been 
found  out  for  him  by  others,  and  to  these  his  attention  is 


LECTURE    VIII.  385 

directed.  Whereas  in  history,  the  laws  of  the  science  are 
kept  out  of  sight,  perhaps  are  not  known,  and  he  is  turned 
adrift,  as  it  were,  on  a  wide  sea,  to  navigate  it  as  he  best 
can,  and  take  his  own  soundings  and  make  his  own  surveys. 
Now  allowing  the  great  beauty  and  interest  of  history  as  a 
series  of  particular  pictures,  not  by  any  means  barren  in 
matter  for  reflection,  but  in  the  highest  degree  rich  and  in- 
structive ;  transcending  all  the  most  curious  details  of  natu- 
ral history,  in  the  ratio  of  man's  superiority  over  the  brute 
creation  ;  yet  I  think  that  we  must  confess  and  deplore  that 
its  scientific  character  has  not  been  yet  sufficiently  made 
out ;  there  hangs  an  uncertainty  about  its  laws  which  to 
most  persons  is  very  perplexing.  Why  is  it  for  example 
that  we  here,  holding  in  common,  as  we  certainly  do,  our 
principles  of  religious  and  moral  truth,  should  yet  regard 
political  questions  so  differently  ?  that  the  history  of  our  own 
great  civil  war,  for  instance,  reads  to  different  persons  so 
different  a  lesson,  so  that  we  cannot  touch  upon  it  without 
being  sure  to  encounter  a  strong  opposition  to  whatever 
opinions  we  may  maintain  respecting  it  ?  (13)  It  is  very 
true  that  some  of  this  opposition  may  arise  from  simple  ig- 
norance, and  then  the  study  of  the  history  may  modify  or 
remove  it ;  but  let  a  man  read,  if  it  be  possible,  every  exist- 
ing document  relating  to  the  facts  of  those  times,  and  is  it 
quite  certain  that  his  conclusions  will  be  precisely  the  same 
with  those  of  another  man  who  may  have  gone  through  the 
same  process  ?  History,  therefore,  does  not  seem  to  be  suf- 
ficient to  the  right  understanding  of  itself;  its  laws,  which, 
as  it  seems,  ought  to  be  established  from  its  facts,  appear, 
even  with  a  full  knowledge  of  the  facts  before  us,  to  be  yet 
infinitely  disputable. 

I  confess  that  if  I  believed  them  to  be  as  really  disputable 
as  they  have  been  disputed,  the  pain  of  such  a  conviction 
would  be  most  grievous  to  bear.  J  am  firmly  persuaded,  on 

33 


386  LECTURE    VIII. 

the  contrary,  that  setting  out  with  those  views  of  man  which 
we  find  in  the  Scriptures,  and  with  those  plain  moral  notions 
which  the  Scriptures  do  not  so  much  teach  as  suppose  to 
exist  in  us,  and  sanction ;  the  laws  of  history,  in  other  words, 
the  laws  of  political  science,  using  "  political"  in  the  most 
exalted  sense  of  the  term,  as  expressing  the  highest  tfoXi<nx^ 
of  the  Greek  philosophers,  may  be  deduced,  or,  if  you  will, 
may  be  confirmed  from  it  with  perfect  certainty,  with  a  cer- 
tainty equal  to  that  of  the  most  undoubted  truths  of  morals.  (14) 
And  if  in  this  or  in  any  former  lectures  I  have  seemed  to 
express  or  to  imply  a  very  firm  conviction  on  points  which  I 
well  know  to  be  warmly  disputed,  it  is  because  these  laws 
being  to  my  own  mind  absolutely  certain,  the  lessons  of  any 
particular  portion  of  history,  supposing  that  the  facts  are 
known  to  us,  appear  to  be  certain  also ;  and  daily  experience 
can  scarcely  remove  my  wonder  at  finding  they  do  not  appeal 
so  to  others. 

That  they  do  not  appear  so,  however,  is  undoubtedly  a 
phenomenon  to  be  accounted  for.  And  hard  as  it  is,  almost 
I  think  impossible,  to  doubt  conclusions  which  seem  both  in 
the  way  by  which  we  arrived  at  them  originally,  and  in  their 
consistency  with  one  another,  and  in  their  offering  a  key  to 
all  manner  of  difficulties,  and  in  their  never  having  met  with 
any  objection  which  we  could  not  readily  answer,  to  com- 
mand absolutely  our  mind's  assent ;  still  I  allow,  that  if  they 
convinced  no  minds  but  ours,  or  if  being  generally  disputed 
or  doubted,  we  could  in  no  way  account  satisfactorily  for  the 
fact  of  such  a  doubt  respecting  them,  we  should  be  driven  to 
the  extremity  of  scepticism ;  truth  would  appear  indeed  to 
be  a  thing  utterly  unreal  or  utterly  unattainable.  Now  on 
the  contrary,  what  appear  to  me  to  be  the  laws  of  history, 
contain  in  them  no  single  paradox ;  there  is  no  step  in  the 
process  by  which  we  arrive  at  them  which  is  not  absolutely 
confirmed  by  the  sanction  of  the  highest  authorities ;  and  the 


LECTURE    VIII.  387 

doubt  respecting  them  appears  to  arise  partly  because  men 
have  not  always  viewed  them  in  combination  with  one  an- 
other, in  which  state  one  modifies  another,  and  removes  or 
lessens  what  might  appear  strange  in  each  separately ;  and 
partly  because  in  regarding  any  one  period  of  history,  our 
perception  of  the  general  law  is  obscured  by  circumstances 
which  interfere  with  its  regular  operation,  and  thus  lead  many 
to  doubt  its  existence. 

But  in  speaking  of  the  certainty  of  the  laws  of  political 
science  I  mean  only  that  there  are  principles  of  government, 
undoubtedly  good  in  themselves,  and  tending  to  the  happi- 
ness of  mankind  ;  and  that,  whenever  these  principles  appear 
not  to  have  produced  good,  it  is  owing  to  some  disturbing 
causes  which  may  be  clearly  pointed  out,  or  to  the  absence 
of  something  which  was  their  proper  consequence,  and  the 
omission  of  which  in  its  season  left  them  without  their  natural 
fruit ;  but  that  although  the  principles  may  thus  be  impeded 
by  untoward  circumstances,  or  fail  to  bring  forth  their  con- 
sequences in  any  given  case,  as  it  is  not  every  blossom  which 
is  succeeded  by  its  fruit,  yet  they  are  an  essential  condition 
of  the  birth  of  fruit,  and  to  oppose  them,  instead  of  furthering 
and  perfecting  their  work,  and  helping  to  make  them  fruitful, 
is  merely  to  uphold  what  is  bad  ;  so  that  there  is  on  one  side, 
it  may  be,  an  ineffectual,  or  even  an  abused  good,  on  the 
other  hand  there  is  a  positive  evil. 

But  one  great  question  still  remains  ;  if  history  has  its 
laws,  as  I  entirely  believe  ;  if  theoretically  considered  it  is 
not  a  mere  aggregation  of  particular  actions  or  characters, 
like  the  anecdotes  of  natural  history,  but  is  besides  this  the 
witness  to  general  moral  and  political  truths,  and  capable, 
when  rightly  used,  of  bringing  to  our  notice  fresh  truths 
which  we  might  not  have  gained  by  a  priori  reasoning  only ; 
still,  it  may  be  asked,  is  this  theoretical  knowledge  available  ? 
Can  the  truths  which  it  teaches  us  to  value  be  really  carried 


388  LECTURE    VIII. 

into  effect  practically,  or  are  we  rather  cursed  with  that  bitter 
thing,  a  powerless  knowledge,  seeing  an  evil  from  which  we 
cannot  escape,  and  a  good  to  which  we  cannot  attain  ;  (15) 
being  in  fact  embarked  upon  the  rapids  of  fate,  which  hurry 
us  along  to  the  top  of  the  fall,  and  then  dash  us  down  below ; 
while  all  the  while,  there  are  the  banks  on  the  right  and  left 
close  in  sight,  an  assured  and  visible  safety  if  we  could  but 
reach  it,  but  we  try  to  steer  and  to  pull  our  boat  thither  in 
vain ;  and  with  eyes  open,  and  amidst  unavailing  struggles, 
we  are  swept  away  to  destruction  ?  This  is  the  belief  of 
some  of  no  mean  name  or  ability ;  who  hold  that  the  destiny 
of  the  present  and  future  was  fixed  irrevocably  by  the  past, 
and  that  the  greatest  efforts  of  individuals  can  do  nothing 
against  it,  nay,  that  they  are  rather  disposed  by  an  overruling 
power  to  be  apparently  the  instruments  in  bringing  it  to  pass. 
While  others  hold  that  great  men  can  control  fate  itself,  that 
there  is  an  energy  in  the  human  will  which  can  as  it  were 
restore  life  to  the  dead ;  and  snap  asunder  the  links  of  the 
chain  of  destiny,  even  when  they  have  been  multiplied  around 
us  by  the  toil  of  centuries. 

Now  practically  there  is  an  end  of  this  question  altogether, 
if  the  power  of  this  supposed  fate  goes  so  far  as  to  make  us 
its  willing  instruments ;  I  mean,  if  the  influences  of  our  time, 
determined  themselves  by  the  influence  of  a  past  time,  do  in 
their  turn  determine  our  characters;  if  we  admire,  abhor, 
hope,  fear,  desire,  or  flee  from,  the  very  objects  and  no  others 
which  an  irresistible  law  of  our  condition  sets  before  us. 
For  to  ask  whether  a  slave  who  loves  his  chains  can  break 
them,  is  but  an  idle  question  ;  because  it  is  certain  that  he 
will  not.  And  if  we  in  like  manner  think  according  to  a 
fixed  law,  viewing  things  in  our  generation  as  beings  born  in 
such  a  generation  must  view  them,  then  it  is  evident  that  our 
deliverance  must  proceed  wholly  from  a  higher  power ;  be- 
fore  the  outward  bondage  can  be  broken,  we  must  be  set  at 


LECTURE  vri.  389 

liberty  within.  The  only  question  which  can  be  of  import- 
ance to  us  is  this,  whether,  if  our  minds  be  free,  our  actions 
can  compass  what  we  desire  ;  whether,  perceiving  the  influ- 
ence of  our  times,  and  struggling  against  it,  we  can  resist  it 
with  success ;  whether  the  natural  consequences  of  the  mis- 
doings of  past  generations  can  be  averted  now,  or  whether 
such  late  repentance  be  unavailing. 

And  here  surely  the  answer  is  such  as  we  should  most 
desire  to  be  the  true  one ;  an  answer  encouraging  exertion, 
yet  making  the  responsibility  of  every  generation  exceedingly 
great,  and  forbidding  us  to  think  that  in  us  or  in  our  actions 
is  placed  the  turning  power  of  the  fortunes  of  the  world.  I 
do  not  suppose  that  any  state  of  things  can  be  conceived  so 
bad  as  that  the  efforts  of  good  men,  working  in  the  faith  of 
God,  can  do  nothing  to  amend  it ;  yet  on  the  other  hand,  the 
evil  may  be  far  too  deeply  rooted  to  be  altogether  removed  ; 
nor  would  it  be  possible  for  the  greatest  individual  efforts  to 
undo  the  effect  of  past  errors  or  crimes,  so  that  it  should  be 
the  same  thing  whether  they  had  ever  been  committed  or  no. 
It  has  been  said,  Conceive  Frederick  the  Great  in  the  place 
of  Louis  the  Sixteenth  on  the  morning  of  the  10th  of  August, 
1792,  and  would  not  the  future  history  of  the  Revolution 
have  been  altogether  different  ?  But  the  more  reasonable 
case  to  conceive  would  be  rather,  that  Louis  the  Sixteenth 
had  been  endowed,  not  on  that  one  day  of  the  10th  of  August, 
but  from  his  early  youth,  with  the  virtue  and  firmness  of 
Louis  the  Ninth,  together  with  the  genius  of  Frederick  or  of 
Napoleon.  What  would  have  been  the  difference  in  the  his. 
tory  of  France  then  ?  That  there  would  have  been  a  great 
difference  I  doubt  not,  yet  were  the  evils  such  as  no  human 
virtue  and  wisdom  could  have  altogether  undone.  No  living 
man  could  have  removed  that  deep  suspicion  and  abhorrence 
entertained  for  the  existing  church  and  clergy  which  made 
the  people  incredulous  of  all  virtue  in  an  individual  priest. 

33* 


390  LECTURE    VIII. 

because  they  were  so  fully  possessed  with  the  impression  of 
the  falsehood  and  evil  of  the  system.  Nor,  in  like  manner, 
could  any  one  have  reconciled  the  peasants  throughout 
France  to  the  landed  proprietors ;  the  feeling  of  hatred  was 
become  too  strong  to  be  appeased,  because  here  too  it  was 
mixed  with  intense  suspicion,  the  result  inevitably  of  suffering 
and  ignorance,  and  nothing  but  the  overthrow  of  those  against 
whom  it  was  directed,  could  have  satisfied  it.  (16)  Yet  high 
virtue  and  ability  in  the  king  would  have  in  all  probability 
both  softened  the  violence  of  the  convulsion,  and  shortened 
its  duration  ;  and  by  saving  himself  from  becoming  its  victim, 
there  would  have  been  one  at  hand  with  acknowledged 
authority  and  power  to  reconstruct  the  frame  of  society  not 
only  sooner  but  better  than  it  was  reconstructed  actually ; 
and  the  monarchy  at  least,  among  the  old  institutions  of 
France,  would  have  retained  the  love  of  the  people,  and 
would  have  been  one  precious  link  to  connect  the  present 
with  the  past,  instead  of  all  links  being  severed  together,  and 
old  France  being  separated  by  an  impassable  gulf  from  the 
new. 

A  greater  accuracy  as  to  the  determining  of  this  question, 
does  not  seem  to  be  attainable.  We  know  that  evil  com- 
mitted is  in  certain  cases,  and  beyond  a  certain  degree,  irre- 
mediable ;  I  do  hot  say,  not  to  be  palliated  or  softened  as  to 
its  consequences,  but  not  to  be  wholly  removed.  And  we 
know  also  that  the  blessing  of  individual  goodness  has  been 
felt  in  very  evil  times,  not  only  by  itself,  but  by  others. 
What,  or  what  amount  of  evil  is  incurable,  or  how  widely  or 
deeply  individual  good  may  become  a  blessing  amidst  pre- 
vailirg  evil,  we  are  not  allowed  to  determine  or  to  know. 
God's  national  judgments  are  spoken  of  in  Scripture  both  as 
reversible  and  irreversible ;  for  Ahab's  repentance  the  threat- 
ened evil  was  delayed,  yet  afterwards  the  cup  of  Judah's  sin 
was  so  full,  that  the  reward  of  Josiah's  goodness  was  his  own 


LECTURE    VIII.  391 

being  early  taken  away  from  the  evil  to  come,  not  the  rever- 
sal nor  even  the  postponement  of  the  sentence  against  his 
country.  Surely  it  is  enough  to  know  that  our  sin  now  may 
render  unavailing  the  greatest  goodness  of  our  posterity  ;  our 
efforts  for  good  may  be  permitted  to  remove,  or  at  any  rate 
to  mitigate,  the  curse  of  our  fathers'  sin. 

Here  then  the  present  introductory  course  of  lectures  shall 
close.  There  is  in  all  things  a  compensation  whether  of 
good  or  evil ;  and  as  the  subject  of  modern  history  is  of  all 
others  to  my  mind  the  most  interesting,  inasmuch  as  it  in- 
cludes all  questions  of  the  deepest  interest  relating  not  to 
human  things  only,  but  to  divine,  so  the  intermixture  of  evil 
is,  that  for  this  very  reason  it  is  of  alt  subjects  the  most  deli- 
cate to  treat  of  before  a  mixed  audience.  Sharing  thus  much 
in  common  with  religious  subjects,  that  no  man  feels  himself 
to  be  a  mere  learner  in  it,  but  also  in  many  respects  a  judge  of 
what  he  hears,  it  has  this  farther  difficulty,  that  the  preacher 
speaking  to  members  of  the  same  church  with  himself  speaks 
necessarily  to  men  whose  religious  opinions  in  the  main  agree 
with  his  own  ;  but  he  who  speaks  on  modern  history,  even  to 
members  of  the  same  nation  and  commonwealth,  speaks  to 
those  whose  political  opinions  may  differ  from  his  own  very 
deeply,  who  therefore  are  sure  not  only  to  judge  what  they 
hear,  but  to  condemn  it.  And  however  much,  when  provoked 
by  opposition,  we  may  even  feel  pleasure  in  stating  our  opin- 
ions in  their  broadest  form,  yet  he  must  be  of  a  different  consti- 
tution of  mind  from  mine,  who  can  like  to  do  this  unprovoked, 
who  can  wish,  in  the  discharge  of  a  public  duty  in  our  own 
common  University,  to  embitter  our  academical  studies  with 
controversy,  to  excite  angry  feelings  in  a  place  where  he  has 
never  met  with  any  thing  but  kindness,  a  place  connected  in 
his  mind  with  recollections,  associations,  and  actual  feelings, 
the  most  prized  and  most  delightful.  Only,  it  must  be  re- 
membered, that  if  modern  history  be  studied  at  all,  he  who 


392  LECTURE    VIH, 

speaks  upon  it  officially,  must  speak  as  he  would  do  on  any 
other  matter,  simply  and  fully  ;  expounding  it  according  to 
his  ability  and  convictions ;  not  disguising  or  suppressing 
what  he  believes  to  be  necessary  to  the  right  understanding 
of  it,  although  it  may  sometimes  cost  him  a  painful  effort. 
But  in  the  lectures  which  I  would  propose  to  deliver  next 
year,  our  business  will  be  less  embarrassing.  We  shall  then 
be  engaged  with  a  remote  period,  where  the  forms  of  our 
present  parties  were  unknown ;  and  our  object  will  be  to 
endeavour  to  represent  to  ourselves  the  England  of  the 
fourteenth  century.  To  represent  it,  if  we  can,  even  in  its 
outward  aspect  fy  for  I  cannot  think  that  the  changes  in  the 
face  of  the  country  are  beneath  the  notice  of  history  :  what 
supplied  the  place  of  the  landscape  which  is  now  so  familiar 
to  us  "y  what  it  was  before  five  hundred  years  of  what  I  may 
call  the  wear  and  tear  of  human  dominion  ',  when  cultivation 
had  scarcely  ventured  beyond  the  valleys,  or  the  low  sunny 
slopes  of  the  neighbouring  hills ;  and  whole  tracts  now 
swarming  with  inhabitants,  were  a  wide  solitude  of  forest  or 
of^moor.  To  represent  it  also  in  its  institutions,  and  its 
state  of  society ;  and  farther,  in  its  individual  men  and  in 
their  actions ;  for  I  would  never  wish  the  results  of  history 
to  be  separated  from  history  itself:  the  great  events  of  past 
times  require  to  be  represented  no  less  than  institutions,  or 
manners,  or  buildings,  or  scenery :  we  must  listen  to  the  stir 
of  gathering  war ;  we  must  follow  our  two  Edwards,  the 
second  and  third,  on  their  enterprises  visited  with  such  dif- 
ferent fortune ;  we  must  be  present  at  the  route  and  flight  of 
Bannockburn,  and  at  the  triumph  of  Crecy.  (17)  Finally, 
we  must  remember  also  not  so  to  transport  ourselves  into  the 
fourteenth  century  as  to  forget  that  we  belong  really  to  the 
nineteenth ;  that  here,  and  not  there,  lie  our  duties ;  that  the 
harvest  gathered  in  the  fields  of  the  past,  is  to  be  brought 
home  for  the  use  of  the  present ;  avoiding  the  fault  of  that 


LECTURE    VIII.  393 

admirable  painter  of  the  middle  ages,  M.  de  Barante,  who, 
having  shown  himself  most  capable  of  analyzing  history 
philosophically,  and  having  described  the  literature  of  France 
in  the  eighteenth  century  in  a  work  not  to  be  surpassed  for 
its  mingled  beauty  and  profoundness,  (18)  has  yet  chosen  in 
his  history  of  the  Dukes  of  Burgundy,  to  forfeit  the  benefits 
of  his  own  wisdom,  and  has  described  the  fourteenth  and  fif- 
teenth centuries  no  otherwise  than  might  have  been  done  by 
their  own  simple  chroniclers.  An  example,  one  amongst  a 
thousand,  how  men  in  their  dread  of  one  extreme,  the  ex- 
treme in  this  case  of  writing  mere  discussions  upon  history 
instead  of  history  itself,  are  apt  to  fall  into  another  not  less 
distant  from  the  true  mean. 

The  experience  of  this  year  has  given  me  the  most  en- 
couraging assurance  that  the  subject  of  modern  history  is 
felt  to  be  full  of  interest.  Those  who  study  it  for  themselves, 
will  certainly  find  its  interest  grow  upon  them ;  it  will  not 
then  be  perilled,  to  apply  an  expression  of  Thucydides,* 
upon  the  capacity  of  a  lecturer,  according  as  he  may  lecture 
with  more  or  less  of  ability  and  knowledge.  (19)  For  we 
here  are  not  likely  to  run  away  with  the  foolish  notion,  that 
lectures  can  teach  us  a  science  without  careful  study  of  our 
own.  They  can  but  excite  us  to  begin  to  work  for  ourselves ; 
possibly  they  may  assist  our  efforts ;  they  can  in  no  way 
supersede  them. 


NOTES 

TO 

LECTURE     VIIi. 


NOTE  1.— Page  372, 

IN  the  History  of  Rome,  Dr.  Arnold  writes  as  follows,  on  the 
difference  between  the  poetical  legends  and  the  wilful  falsehoods 
of  the  Roman  family  memoirs  : 

*  *  "  But  before  we  finally  quit  the  poetical  legends  of  the  early 
Roman  history,  the  last  of  them  and  not  the  least  beautiful,  that 
which  relates  to  the  fall  of  Veii,  must  find  its  place  in  this  narra- 
tive. In  the  life  of  Camillus  there  meet  two  distinct  kinds  of  fic- 
tion, equally  remote  from  historical  truth,  but  in  all  other  respects 
most  opposite  to  one  another,  the  one  imaginative  but  honest, 
playing  it  is  true  with  the  facts  of  history,  and  converting  them 
into  a  whole  different  form,  but  addressing  itself  also  to  a  different 
part  of  the  mind ;  not  professing  to  impart  exact  knowledge,  but  to 
delight,  to  quicken,  and  to  raise  the  perception  of  what  is  beautiful 
and  noble :  the  other,  tame  and  fraudulent,  deliberately  corrupting 
truth  in  order  to  minister  to  national  or  individual  vanity,  pretend- 
ing to  describe  actual  events,  but  substituting  in  the  place  of  reality 
the  representations  of  interested  or  servile  falsehood.  To  the 
former  of  these  classes  belongs  the  legend  of  the  fall  of  Veii ;  to  the 
latter  the  interpolation  of  the  pretended  victory  of  Camillus  over 
the  Gauls.  The  stories  of  the  former  kind,  as  innocent  as  they  are 
delightful,  I  have  thought  it  an  irreverence  to  neglect :  the  fabri- 
cations of  the  latter  sort,  which  are  the  peculiar  disgrace  of  Roman 
history,  it  is  best  to  pass  over  in  total  silence,  that  they  may  if  pos- 
sible be  consigned  to  perpetual  oblivion." 

Vol.  i.  ch.  xviii.  p.  395. 

A  train  of  thought  somewhat  similar  to  that  which  occurs  in  the 
first  part  of  the  text  of  this  Lecture,  and  which  had  elsewhere  been 


NOTES    TO    LECTURE    VIII.  395 

«,  subject  of  reflection  to  Dr.  Arnold  in  his  study  of  the  legends  of 
Roman  History,  will  be  found  in  the  following  passages  from  the 
'  Lives  of  the  English  Saints  :' 

*  *  When  "  so  much  has  been  said  and  believed  of  a  number  of 
Saints  with  so  little  historical  foundation.  It  is  not  that  we  may 
lawfully  despise  or  refuse  a  great  gift  and  benefit,  historical  testimony, 
and  the  intellectual  exercises  which  attend  on  it,  study,  research, 
and  criticism ;  for  in  the  hands  of  serious  and  believing  men  they 
are  ?i  the  highest  value.  We  do  not  refuse  them,  but  in  the  cases 
in  question,  we  have  them  not.  The  bulk  of  Christians  have  them 
not ;  the  multitude  has  them  not ;  the  multitude  forms  its  view  of 
the  past,  not  from  antiquities,  not  critically,  not  in  the  letter ;  but  it 
develops  its  small  portion  of  true  knowledge  into  something  which 
is  like  the  very  truth  though  it  be  not  it,  and  which  stands  for  the 
truth  when  it  is  but  like  it.  Its  evidence  is  a  legend  ;  its  facts  are 
a  symbol ;  its  history  a  representation ;  its  drift  is  a  moral. 

"  Thus  then  is  it  with  the  biographies  and  reminiscences  of  thtj 
Saints.  *  Some  there  are  which  have  no  memorial,  and  are  as 
though  they  had  never  been  ;'  others  are  known  to  have  lived  and 
died,  and  are  known  in  little  else.  They  have  left  a  name  but  they 
have  left  nothing  besides.  Or  the  place  of  their  birth,  or  of  their 
abode,  or  of  their  death,  or  some  one  or  other  striking  incident  of 
their  life,  gives  a  character  to  their  memory.  Or  they  are  known  by 
martyrologies  or  services,  or  by  the  traditions  of  a  neighbourhood, 
or  by  the  title  or  the  decorations  of  a  Church.  Or  they  are  known 
by  certain  miraculous  interpositions  which  are  attributed  to  them. 
Or  their  deeds  and  sufferings  belong  to  countries  far  away,  and  the 
report  of  them  comes  musical  and  low  over  the  broad  sea.  Such 
are  some  of  the  small  elements  which,  when  more  is  not  known, 
faith  is  fain  to  receive,  love  dwells  on,  meditation  unfolds,  disposes, 
and  forms ;  till  by  the  sympathy  of  many  minds,  and  the  concert 
of  many  voices,  and  the  lapse  of  many  years,  a  certain  whole  figure 
is  developed  with  words  and  actions,  a  history  and  a  character — 
which  is  indeed  but  the  portrait  of  the  original,  yet  is,  as  much  as  a 
portrait,  an  imitation  rather  than  a  copy,  a  likeness  on  the  whole, 
but  in  its  particulars  more  or  less  the  work  of  imagination.  It  is 
but  collateral  and  parallel  to  the  truth ;  it  is  the  truth  under  assumed 
conditions ;  it  brings  out  a  true  idea,  vet  by  inaccurate  or  defective 


396  NOTES 

means  of  exhibition,  it  savours  of  the  age,  yet  »t  is  the  offspring 
from  what  is  spiritual  and  everlasting.  It  is  the  picture  of  a  saint, 
who  did  other  miracles  if  not  these ;  who  went  through  sufferings, 
who  wrought  righteousness,  who  died  in  faith  and  peace — of  this 
we  are  sure  ;  we  are  not  sure,  should  it  so  happen,  of  the  when, 
the  where,  the  how,  the  why,  and  the  whence.  *  *  * 

*  *  "  The  author  of  a  marvellous  Life  may  be  proved  to  a  de- 
monstration to  be  an  ignorant,  credulous  monk,  or  a  literary  or 
ecclesiastical  gossip  ;  to  be  preaching  to  us  his  dreams,  or  to  have 
saturated  himself  with  popular  absurdities  ;  he  may  be  cross-exam- 
ined, and  made  to  contradict  himself;  or  his  own  story,  as  it  stands, 
may  be  self-destructive  ;  and  yet  he  may  be  the  index  of  a  hidden 
fact,  and  may  symbolize  a  history  to  which  he  does  not  testify. 

*  *  "  The  Lives  of  the  Saints  are  not  so  much  strict  biographies 
as  myths,  edifying  stories  compiled  from  tradition,  and  designed 
not  so  much  to  relate  facts,  as  to  produce  a  religious  impression  on 
the  mind  of  the  hearer.     Under  the  most  favourable  circumstances, 
it  is  scarcely  conceivable  that  uninspired  men  could  write  a  faithful 
history  of  a  miraculous  life.      Even  ordinary  history,  except  mere 
annals,  is  all  more  or  less  fictitious  ;  that  is,  the  facts  are  related, 
not  as  they  really  happened,  but  as  they  appeared  to  the  writer ;  aa 
they  happened  to  illustrate  his  views  or  support  his  prejudices. 
And  if  this  is  so  of  common  facts,  how  much  more  so  must  it  be 
when  all  the  power  of  the  marvellous  is  thrown  in  to  stimulate  the 
imagination.      But  to  see  fully  the  difficulties  under  which  the 
writers  of  these  Lives  must  have  laboured,  let  us  observe  a  few  of 
the  ways  in  which  we  all,  and  time  for  us,  treat  the  common  his- 
tory and  incidents  of  life. 

"  First ;  we  all  write  legends.  Little  as  we  may  be  conscious 
of  it,  we  all  of  us  continually  act  on  the  very  same  principle, 
which  made  the  Lives  of  Saints  such  as  we  find  them ;  only  per- 
haps less  poetically. 

"  Who  has  not  observed  in  himself,  in  his  ordinary  dealings  with 
the  facts  of  every  day  life,  with  the  sayings  and  doings  of  his  ac- 
quaintance, in  short,  with  every  thing  which  comes  before  him  as  a 
fact,  a  disposition  to  forget  the  real  order  in  which  they  appear, 
and  re-arrange  them  according  to  his  theory  of  how  they  ought  to 
be l  Do  we  hear  of  a  generous  self-denying  action,  in  a  short  time 


TO    LECTURE    VIII.  397 

the  real  doer  and  it  are  forgotten ;  it  has  become  the  property  of 
the  noblest  person  we  know :  so  a  jest  we  relate  of  the  wittiest 
person,  frivolity  of  the  most  frivolous,  and  so  on ;  each  particular 
act  we  attribute  to  the  person  we  conceive  most  likely  to  have  been 
the  author  of  it.  And  this  does  not  arise  from  any  wish  to  leave  a 
false  impression,  scarcely  from  carelessness ;  but  only  because  facts 
refuse  to  remain  bare  and  isolated  in  our  memory;  they  will 
arrange  themselves  under  some  law  or  other ;  they  must  illus- 
trate something  to  us — some  character,  some  principle — or  else 
we  forget  them.  Facts  are  thus  perpetually,  so  to  say,  becoming 
unfixed  and  re-arranged  in  a  more  conceptional  order.  In  this 
way,  we  find  fragments  of  Jewish  history  in  the  legends  of  Greece, 
stories  from  Herodotus  become  naturalized  in  the  tradition  of  early 
Rome ;  and  the  mythic  exploits  of  the  northern  heroes,  adopted  by 
the  biographers  of  our  Saxon  kings.  So,  uncertain  traditions  of 
miracles  with  vague  descriptions  of  name  and  place,  are  handed 
down  from  generation  to  generation,  and  each  set  of  people,  as  they 
pass  into  their  minds,  naturally  group  them  round  the  great  central 
figure  of  their  admiration  or  veneration,  be  he  hero  or  be  he  saint. 
And  so  with  the  great  objects  of  national  interest.  Alfred — '  Eng- 
land's darling' — the  noblest  of  the  Saxon  kings,  became  mythic 
almost  before  his  death  ;  and  forthwith,  every  institution  that  Eng- 
lishmen most  value,  of  law  or  church,  became  appropriated  to  him. 
He  divided  England  into  shires  ;  he  established  trial  by  jury ;  he 
destroyed  wolves  and  made  the  country  so  secure,  that  golden 
bracelets  hung  untouched  in  the  open  road.  And  when  Oxford  was 
founded,  a  century  was  added  to  its  age ;  and  it  was  discovered 
that  Alfred  had  laid  the  first  stone  of  the  first  college,  and  that  St. 
Neot  had  been  the  first  Professor  of  Theology." 

Lives  of  the  English  Saints,  No.  IV., '  Hermit  Saints,'  pp.  3,  62,  and  74. 

NOTE  2. — Page  372. 

The  story  is  told,  I  believe,  of  the  Abbe  Vertot.  Southey,  it 
one  of  his  Essays,  tells  it  of  a  "  French  historian,"  without  giving 
a  name.  It  may  be  that  Vertot  gets  the  credit  of  it  from  the  other 
story  told  of  him — that  when  offered  some  additional  and  unpub- 
lished materials  for  his  History  of  the  Siege  of  Rhodes,  he  replied, 
"  Mon  siege  est  fait." 

34 


398  NOTES 


NOTE  3.— Page  373. 

*  *  "  Time  in  another  way  plays  strange  tricks  with  facts,  and 
is  ever  altering,  shifting,  and  even  changing  their  nature  in  our 
memory.  Every  man's  past  life  is  becoming  mythic  to  him ;  we 
cannot  call  up  again  the  feelings  of  our  childhood,  only  we  know 
that  what  then  seemed  to  us  the  bitterest  misfortunes,  we  have 
since  learnt  by  change  of  character  or  circumstance,  to  think  very 
great  blessings ;  and  even  when  there  is  no  change,  and  were  they 
to  recur  again,  they  are  such  as  we  should  equally  repine  at,  yet  by 
mere  lapse  of  time  sorrow  is  turned  to  pleasure,  and  the  sharpest 
pang  at  present  becomes  the  most  alluring  object  of  our  retrospect. 
The  sick-bed,  the  school  trial,  loss  of  friends,  pain  and  grief  of 
every  kind,  become  rounded  off,  and  assume  a  soft  and  beautiful 
grace.  *  Time  dissipates  to  shining  aether  the  hard  angularity  of 
facts ;'  the  harshest  of  them  are  smoothed  and  chastened  off  in  the 
past  like  the  rough  mountains  and  jagged  rocks  in  the  distant  hori- 
zon. And  so  it  is  with  every  other  event  of  our  lives ;  read  a  let- 
ter we  wrote  ten  years  ago,  and  how  impossible  we  find  it  to  recog- 
nise the  writer  in  our  altered  selves.  Incident  after  incident  rises 
up  and  bides  its  day,  and  then  sinks  back  into  the  landscape.  It 
changes  by  distance,  and  we  change  by  age.  While  it  was  present 
it  meant  one  thing,  now  it  means  another,  and  to-morrow  perhaps 
something  else  on  the  point  of  vision  alters.  Even  old  Nature, 
endlessly  and  patiently  reproducing  the  same  forms,  the  same  beau- 
ties, cannot  reproduce  in  us  the  same  emotions  we  remember  in  our 
childhood.  Then  all  was  Fairy-land :  now  time  and  custom  have 
deadened  our  sense,  and 

The  things  which  we  have  seen,  we  now  can  see  no  more. 

This  is  the  true  reason  why  men  people  past  ages  with  the  superhu- 
man and  the  marvellous.  They  feel  their  own  past  was  indeed  some- 
thing miraculous,  and  they  cannot  adequately  represent  their  feel- 
ings except  by  borrowing  from  another  order  of  beings. 

"  Thus  age  after  age  springs  up,  and  each  succeeds  to  the  inher- 
itance of  all  that  went  before  it ;  but  each  age  has  its  own  feelings, 
its  own  character,  its  own  necessities  ;  therefore,  receiving  the  ac- 
cumulations of  literature  and  history,  it  absorbs,  and  fuses,  and  re- 


TO    LECTURE    VIII.  399 

models  them  to  meet  the  altered  circumstances.  The  histories  of 
Greece  and  Rome  are  not  yet  exhausted  ;  every  new  historian  finds 
something  more  in  them.  Alcibiades  and  Catiline  are  not  to  us 
what  they  were  to  Thucydides  and  Sallust,  even  though  we  use 
their  eyes  to  look  at  them.  So  it  has  been  with  facts,  and  so  it  al- 
ways shall  be.  It  holds  writh  the  lives  of  individuals  ;  it  holds  with 
histories,  even  where  there  is  contemporary  writing,  and  much 
more  than  either,  where,  as  with  many  of  the  Lives  of  the  Saints, 
we  can  only  see  them  as  they  appeared  through  the  haze  of  several 
generations,  with  no  other  light  but  oral  tradition." 

Lives  of  the  English  Saints,  No.  IV.,  '  Hermit  Saints,'  p.  78. 

NOTE  4.— Page  376. 

The  want  of  trustworthiness  in  the  two  great  military  auto-his- 
torians of  ancient  and  modern  times,  Caesar  and  Napoleon,  has  been 
strongly  commented  on  in  the  'Histoire  de  VArt  MilitaireJ  by  Car- 
rion-Nisas,  an  officer  who  served  with  considerable  distinction  in 
the  French  cavalry  in  the  Peninsular  war,  and  whose  work,  I  am 
informed,  is  esteemed  for  its  professional  value.  He  places  the 
fairness  of  Turenne's  military  memoirs  in  fine  contrast  with  those 
of  both  Caesar  and  Napoleon  : 

"  On  admire  surtout  dans  les  Memoires  de  Turenne  la  candeur 
de  ses  aveux  ;  c'est  surtout  en  ce  point  qu'il  differe  de  Cesar ;  et  il 
est  effectivement  curieux  de  voir  avec  quel  detail  Turenne  semble 
se  plaire  a  faire  remarquer  toutes  ses  fautes  et  les  positions  dange- 
reuses  ou  elles  le  jeterent.  Dans  le  recit  de  1'affaire  malheureuse 
de  Mariendhal,  tantot  il  s'accuse  de  trop  defacilite  £  permettre  une 
mesure  qui  rendoit  les  cantonnemens  de  la  cavalerie  plus  commodes, 
mais  plus  hasardeux ;  tantot  il  denonce  sa  propre  resolution  prise 
malapropos ;  il  ne  dissimule  pas  que  toute  son  infanterie  etoit  per- 
due ;  il  se  peint  comme  reduit,  par  sa  faute,  a  fuir  presque  seul,  et 
sur  le  point  d'etre  pris.  Au  milieu  de  ce  desordre  naivement  ra- 
conte,  il  excuse  M.  de  Rosen  d'avoir  engage  1'affaire,  et  ne  manqua 
pas  de  dire  que  ce  general,  qui  fut  fait  prisonnier,  avoit  tres-bien 
fait  son  devoir ;  enfin,  il  se  charge  seul  de  tout  le  blame  d'une 
affaire  desastreuse."  To  this  the  author  adds,  in  a  note, — "  Quelle 
difference  de  cette  franchise,  de  cette  naivete  de  Turenne,  de  cet 
amour  de  la  verite  sans  bornes  et  sans  reticence,  avec  la  subtile  ar- 


400  NOTES 

gumentation,  1'ego'isme  opinidtre,  les  tours  de  force  de  Napoleon, 
pour  persuader  au  monde  ce  qui  n'a  jamais  ete  vrai  d'aucun  mortel, 
en  aucun  temps  ;  savoir,  qu'il  n'a  jamais  commis  une  faute  dans  ce 
qu'il  a  fait,  une  erreur  dans  ce  qu'il  a  dit !  On  trouve  bien  quelque 
chose  de  cette  intention  de  Napoleon  dans  les  Commentaires  de 
Cesar,  mais  avec  bien  plus  d'art,  de  gout  et  de  sobriete." 

Tome  II,  p.  101-2. 

Again,  in  the  same  volume,  p.  645,  with  reference  to  the  St.  He- 
lena Memoirs,  the  author  remarks  :  "  Napoleon  denature  tellement 
les  faits,  qu'il  faut  attribuer  sa  maniere  de  les  presenter  ou  a  une 
presomption  extreme,  et  qui  est  la  folie  meme  dont  il  etoit  affecte, 
ou  a  un  pur  mensonge  qui  seroit  trop  au-dessous  de  Napoleon." 

An  earlier  writer  on  military  science,  Puysegur,  in  his  'Art  de  la 
Guerre?  (a  work  in  which  there  is  much  solicitude  to  refute  the  er- 
ror noticed  by  Arnold,  that  the  lessons  of  ancient  warfare  are  use- 
less to  the  modern  soldier,)  draws  the  same  contrast  between  Caesar 
and  Turenne  ;  and  it  is  remarked  in  the  treatise  quoted  above.  "  II 
n'est  pas  etonnant  que  Puysegur,  si  bien  fait  pour  apprecier  la  ve- 
racite  et  la  candeur  de  Turenne,  ait  et6  un  peu  repousse  par  les  ar- 
tifices continuels  de  Cesar,  que  sous  leur  voile  de  simplicite  Puy- 
segur apercevoit  tres  bien."  I.  604.  And  in  the  Appendix 
(ii.  615)  he  dwells  upon  this  admirable  integrity  and  candour  of 
Lewis  the  Fourteenth's  great  Marshal :  "  On  ne  sauroit  trop  revenir 
sur  ce  trait  singulier  de  son  caractere.  Turenne  disoit  de  Rithel 
et  de  Mariendhal,  '  J'y  fus  battu  par  ma  faute,'  et  entrant  sans  re- 
pugnance dans  ses  details,  '  Si  je  voulais,'  ecrit  il,  *  me  faire  justice 
un  peu  severement,  je  dirois  que  1'affaire  de  Mariendhal  est  arrivee 
pour  m'etre  laisse  aller  mal-a-propos  a  1'importunite  des  Allemands, 
qui  demandoient  des  quartiers ;  et  que  celle  de  Rithel  est  venue 
pour  m'etre  trop  fie  a  la  lettre  du  gouverneur,  qui  promettoit  de  tenir 
quatre  jours  la  veille  meme  qu'il  se  rendit.  Je  fus,  dans  ces  occa- 
sions, trop  credule  et  trop  facile ;  mais  quand  un  homme  n'a  pat 
fait  de  f antes  a  la  guerre^  il  ne  1'a  pas  faite  long-temps.'  Ainsi 
cette  admirable  franchise  etoit  encore  de  la  profondeur  d'observa- 
tion." 

The  best  reputation  which  has  since  been  gained  by  a  soldier  and 
Ustorian,  for  that  historic  truthfulness  and  candour  in  the  narrative 


TO    LECTURE    VIII.  401 

of  his  own  campaigns,  which  appears  to  have  distinguished  Turenne, 
is  that  which  has  been  secured  by  the  Archduke  Charles.  Mr.  Ali- 
son, speaking  of  the  history  of  the  German  campaigns,  remarks : 
"  Military  history  has  few  more  remarkable  works  of  which  to  boast. 
Luminous,  sagacious,  disinterested,  severe  in  judging  of  himself,  in- 
dulgent in  criticising  the  conduct  of  others  ;  liberal  of  praise  to  all 
but  his  own  great  achievements,  profoundly  skilled  in  the  military- 
art,  and  gifted  with  no  common  powers  of  narrative  and  description, 
his  work  is  a  model  of  candid  and  able  military  disquisition.  Less 
vehement  and  forcible  than  Napoleon,  he  is  more  circumspect  and 
consistent ;  with  far  inferior  genius,  he  is  distinguished  by  infinitely 
greater  candour,  generosity,  and  trustworthiness.  On  a  fact  stated 
by  the  Archduke,  whether  favourable  or  adverse  to  his  reputation, 
or  a  criticism  made  by  him  on  others,  the  most  perfect  reliance  may 
be  placed."  <  Hist,  of  Europe?  ch.  29,  note.  Of  the  high  merit 
of  the  military  authorship  of  the  Archduke  still  more  substantial 
proof  is  found  in  the  impartial  respect  rendered  to  his  works  by  such 
eminent  professional  French  authority  as  Jomini  and  Dumas ;  the 
former  having  considered  it  an  honourable  task  to  translate  and  an- 
notate them,  and  the  latter  recognising  their  standard  authority. — 
Appendix  to  the  5th  vol.  of  the  '  Precis  des  Evenemens  Mili- 
taires.'* 

As  one  of  the  class  of  military  histories,  referred  to  in  this  note, 
the  Duke  of  Berwick's  Memoirs  ('  Memoires  de  Berwick'')  may 
also  be  mentioned  as  an  accurate  and  trusty  record  of  his  own 
campaigns.  I  state  this  character  of  the  work,  not  from  my  own 
knowledge,  but  because  it  is  so  spoken  of  by  Lord  Mahon  in  his 
'  History  of  the  War  of  the  Succession  in  Spain.'  He  frequently 
cites  the  Memoirs  among  his  authorities,  and  refers  to  them  (chap, 
iii.)  as  *  written  with  great  frankness  and  simplicity,  and  affording 
some  of  the  best  materials  for  the  War  of  the  Succession.' 

NOTE  5. — Page  377. 

In  the  sketch  of  the  state  of  Greece  in  early  times,  with  which 
Thucydides  introduces  his  history,  he  laments  the  uncertainty  that 
is  produced  by  the  facility  with  which  men  receive  traditional  hear- 
say without  putting  the  truth  of  it  to  the  test — d#a<r<moT(«,j.  After 

34* 


402  NOTES 

citing  several  examples  of  historical  errors,  he  deplores  that  there 
should  be  so  great  and  so  general  indolence  —  carelessness  in  the 
search  after  truth,  such  reluctance  to  have  any  trouble  about  it, 
and  the  readiness  with  which  men  betake  themselves,  with  lazy 
credulity  and  want  of  earnestness,  to  whatever  chances  to  be  ready 

for  them  -  o6ru?  draAaiVwpos  rots   TroXXoTj   i]  ^Trials  r?;?  a\rjdeias,  Kal  t*l  ri 


NOTE  6.—  Page  381. 

This  sentence  appears  to  me  so  completely  to  describe  the  style  of 
Mr.  Macauley,  that  his  brilliant  review-essays  may  be  said  to  ex- 
emplify Dr.  Arnold's  reflection.  It  is  the  predominance  of  such  a 
style  that  has  exposed  him  to  this  criticism  by  a  fellow-reviewer  — 
"  Mr.  Macauley,  pointed  and  brilliant,  but  sacrificing  every  thing 
to  the  object  of  immediate  display,  insomuch  that  one  would  hardly 
gather  from  his  writings  that  he  believed  truth  to  have  existence." 
Brit.  Critic  :  Article  on  Mill's  Logic. 

NOTE  7.—  Page  381. 

Coleridge  has  insisted  upon  "  the  importance  of  accuracy  of  style 
as  being  near  akin  to  veracity  and  truthful  habits  of  mind."  *  Lit. 
Remains^  i.  241.  And  of  the  author  of  these  Lectures  it  has  been 
well  said,  "  Arnold's  style  is  worthy  of  his  manly  understanding,  and 
the  noble  simplicity  of  his  character."  *  Guesses  at  Truth?  p.  289. 

NOTE  8.  —  Page  382. 

*  *  "  What  his  (Arnold's)  general  admiration  for  Niebuhr  was 
as  a  practical  motive  in  the  earlier  part  of  his  work,  that  his  deep 
aversion  to  Gibbon,  as  a  man,  was  in  the  latter  part.  '  My  highest 
ambition,'  he  said,  as  early  as  1826,  '  and  what  I  hope  to  do  as  far 
as  I  can,  is  to  make  my  history  the  very  reverse  of  Gibbon  in  this 
respect,  —  that  whereas  the  whole  spirit  of  his  work,  from  its  low 
morality,  is  hostile  to  religion,  without  speaking  directly  against  it  ; 
so  my  greatest  desire  would  be,  in  my  History,  by  its  high  morals 
and  its  general  tone,  to  be  of  use  to  the  cause,  without  actually 

bringing  it  forward.'  " 

*  Life  and  Correspondence,'  chap.  ir. 


TO    LECTURE    VIII.  403 

NOTE  9.— Page  182. 

"  Nothing  shows  more  clearly  the  great  rarity  of  geographical 
talent,  than  the  praise  which  has  been  commonly  bestowed  on  Poly- 
bius as  a  good  geographer.  He  seems  indeed  to  have  been  aware 
of  the  importance  of  geography  to  history,  and  to  have  taken 
considerable  pains  to  gain  information  on  the  subject :  but  this 
very  circumstance  proves  the  more  the  difficulty  of  the  task ;  for 
his  descriptions  are  so  vague  and  imperfect,  and  so  totally  devoid 
of  painting,  that  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  understand  them.  For 
instance,  in  his  account  of  the  march  of  the  Gauls  into  Italy,  and 
of  the  subsequent  movements  of  their  army  and  of  the  Romans, 
there  is  an  obscurity  which  never  could  have  existed,  had  he  con- 
ceived in  his  own  mind  a  lively  image  of  the  seat  of  war  as  a  whole, 
of  the  connection  of  the  rivers  and  chains  of  mountains  with  each 
other,  and  of  the  consequent  direction  of  the  roads  and  most  fre- 
quented passes.  *  *  * 

"  The  question  in  what  direction  this  famous  march  (Hannibal's 
passage  across  the  Alps)  was  taken,  has  been  agitated  for  more 
than  1800  years,  and  who  can  undertake  to  decide  it?  The  diffi- 
culty to  modern  inquirers  has  been  chiefly  from  the  total  absence 
of  geographical  talent  in  Polybius.  That  this  historian  indeed  should 
ever  have  gained  the  reputation  of  a  good  geographer,  only  proves 
how  few  there  are  who  have  any  notion  what  a  geographical  in- 
stinct is.  Polybius  indeed  laboured  with  praiseworthy  diligence  to 
become  a  geographer  ;  but  he  laboured  against  nature  ;  and  the  un- 
poetical  character  of  his  mind  has  in  his  writings  actually  lessened 
the  accuracy,  as  it  has  totally  destroyed  the  beauty  of  history.  To 
any  man  who  comprehended  the  whole  character  of  a  mountain 
country,  and  the  nature  of  its  passes,  nothing  could  have  been  easier 
than  to  have  conveyed  at  once  a  clear  idea  of  Hannibal's  route,  by 
naming  the  valley  by  which  he  had  ascended  to  the  main  chain,  and 
afterwards  that  which  he  followed  in  descending  from  it.  Or  ad- 
mitting that  the  names  of  barbarian  rivers  would  have  conveyed 
little  information  to  Greek  readers,  still  the  several  Alpine  valleys 
have  each  their  peculiar  character,  and  an  observer  with  the  least 
power  of  description  could  have  given  such  lively  touches  of  the 
varying  scenery  of  the  march,  that  future  travellers  must  at  once 


404  NOTES 

have  recognised  his  description.  Whereas  the  account  of  Polybius 
is  at  once  so  unscientific  and  so  deficient  in  truth  and  liveliness  of 
painting,  that  persons  who  have  gone  over  the  several  Alpine  passes 
for  the  very  purpose  of  identifying  his  descriptions,  can  still  rea- 
sonably doubt  whether  they  were  meant  to  apply  to  Mont  Genevre, 
or  Mont  Cenis,  or  to  the  Little  St.  Bernard." 

History  of  Rome,  vol.  iii  ,  notes  F  and  L. 

*  *  *  "  How  bad  a  geographer  is  Polybius,  and  how  strange  that 
he  should  be  thought  a  good  one  !  Compare  him  with  any  man  who 
is  really  a  geographer,  with  Herodotus,  with  Napoleon, — whose 
sketches  of  Italy,  Egypt,  and  Syria,  in  his  memoirs,  are  to  me  un- 
rivalled,— or  with  Niebuhr,  and  how  striking  is  the  difference.  The 
dullness  of  Polybius's  fancy  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  conceive 
or  paint  scenery  clearly,  and  how  can  a  man  be  a  geographer  with- 
out lively  images  of  the  formation  and  features  of  the  country  which 
he  describes  ?  How  different  are  the  several  Alpine  valleys,  and 
how  would  a  few  simple  touches  of  the  scenery  which  he  seems 
actually  to  have  visited,  yet  could  neither  understand  nor  feel  it, 
have  decided  for  ever  the  question  of  the  route  !  (Hannibal's.)  Now 
the  account  suits  no  valley  well,  and  therefore  it  may  be  applied  to 
many."  *  *  * 

*  Life  and  Correspondence,'  letter  ex.,  Septem.  21, 1835 

C, 

NOTE  10.— Page  382. 

"  Nothing  shows  more  forcibly  the  unrivalled  truth  of  the  narra- 
tive of  Thucydides  than  to  contrast  it,  as  we  have  here  an  oppor- 
tunity of  doing,  with  that  of  an  ordinary  historian  such  as  Diodorus 
Siculus.  For  instance,  Thucydides,  well  aware  of  the  studied 
secrecy  observed  in  such  matters  by  the  Lacedaemonian  government, 
does  not  pretend  to  state  the  number  of  the  Spartan  land  forces 
employed  at  the  siege  of  Pylus.  Diodorus,  however,  states  it  with- 
out hesitation,  at  '  twelve  thousand.'  The  soldiers  sent  over  to 
Sphacteria  were,  according  to  Thucydides,  drafted  by  lot  from  the 
several  Lochi ;  Diodorus,  to  enhance  the  glory  of  the  Athenians, 
represents  them  as  '  picked  men,  chosen  for  their  valour.'  The 
eiege  of  Pylus,  Thucydides  tells  us,  lasted  during  one  whole  day 


TO    LECTURE    VIII.  405 

and  part  of  the  next :  Diodorus  carries  it  on  through  '  several  days. 
Lastly,  the  heroic  courage  of  Brasidas,  and  his  bold  though  unsuc- 
cessful attempt  to  force  a  landing,  are  told  by  Thucydides  with 
equal  force  and  simplicity ;  while  Diodorus,  in  his  clumsy  endea- 
vours to  exalt  the  effect  of  the  story,  makes  it  only  ridiculous  :  for 
he  describes  Brasidas  as  repelling  a  host  of  enemies,  and  killing 
many  of  the  Athenians  in  single  combat,  before  he  was  disabled. 
No  wonder  that  we  hear  complaints  of  the  uncertainty  of  history, 
when  such  a  writer  as  Diodorus  is  only  a  fair  specimen  of  by  far 
the  majority  of  those  whom  the  world  has  been  good-natured  enough 
to  call  historians." 

ARNOLD'S  'Thucydides^  vol.  h.  p.  15.    Note- 

*  *  "  This  simple  statement,  when  contrasted  with  the  exaggera- 
tion of  Cornelius  Nepos,  serves  admirably  to  show  the  difference  be- 
tween a  sensible  man  who  loved  truth,  and  the  careless  folly  of  that 
most  worthless  class  of  writers,  the  second  and  third-rate  historians 
of  Greece  and  Rome.  Thucydides  says  that  *  Themistocles  learnt 
as  much  of  the  Persian  language  as  he  could  ;'  Cornelius  Nepos 
tells  us,  that  he  became  so  perfectly  master  of  it,  *  ut  multo  com- 
modius  dicatur  apud  regem  verba  fecisse,  quam  hi  poterant  qui  in 
Perside  erant  nati.' " 

76.  vol.  i.  p.  165.    Note. 

"  The  whole  of  this  chapter  (on  the  Battle  in  the  Harbour  of 
Syracuse  and  defeat  of  the  Athenians)  has  been  copied  by  Dion 
Cassius  nearly  word  for  word,  and  applied  to  his  own  account  of 
the  naval  victory  gained  by  M.  Agrippa,  over  the  fleet  of  Sex. 
Pompeius  in  Sicily,  in  the  year  of  Rome  718.  It  was  a  strange 
taste  to  embellish  a  history  with  borrowed  descriptions,  which  of 
course  could  only  suit  in  their  general  outline  the  actions  to  which 
they  were  thus  transferred.  But  this  indifference  to  fidelity  of  de- 
tail, and  this  habit  of  dressing  up  an  historical  picture,  as  some 
artists  dress  up  their  sketches  from  nature,  has  produced  effects  of 
no  light  importance  in  corrupting  first  history  itsejf,  and  then  the 
taste  of  readers  of  history." 

lb.  vol.  iii.  p.  235.    Not« 


406  NOTES 

NOTE  11.— Page  382. 

*  *  "  I  hold  the  lines,  *  Nil  admirari,  &c.,'  to  be  as  utterly  false 
as  any  moral  sentiment  ever  uttered.  Intense  admiration  is  neces- 
sary to  our  highest  perfection,  &c." 

'  Life  and  Correspondence?  Letter  Ixvii.  July  15, 1833. 

"  *  *  "I  believe  that '  Nil  admirari,'  in  this  sense,  is  the  Devil's 
favourite  text ;  and  he  could  not  choose  a  better  to  introduce  his 
pupils  into  the  more  esoteric  parts  of  his  doctrine.  And  therefore 
I  have  always  looked  upon  a  man  infected  with  this  disorder  of 
anti-romance,  as  on  one  who  has  lost  the  finest  part  of  his  nature, 
and  his  best  protection  against  every  thing  low  and  foolish."  *  * 

Ib.  Letter  c.  March  30, 1835. 

NOTE  12.— Page  384. 

"  It  might  seem  ludicrous  to  speak  of  impartiality  in  writing  the 
history  of  remote  times,  did  not  those  times  really  bear  a  nearer 
resemblance  to  our  own  than  many  imagine ;  or  did  not  Mitford's 
example  sufficiently  prove  that  the  spirit  of  modern  party  may  affect 
our  view  of  ancient  history.  But  many  persons  do  not  clearly  see 
what  should  be  the  true  impartiality  of  an  historian.  If  there  be 
no  truths  in  moral  and  political  science,  little  good  can  be  derived 
from  the  study  of  either ;  if  there  be  truths,  it  must  be  desirable 
that  they  should  be  discovered  and  embraced.  Scepticism  must  ever 
be  a  misfortune  or  a  defect :  a  misfortune,  if  there  be  no  means  of 
arriving  at  truth ;  a  defect,  if  while  there  exist  such  means  we  are 
unable  or  unwilling  to  use  them.  Believing  fliat  political  science 
has  its  truths  no  less  than  moral,  I  cannot  regard  them  with  indif- 
ference, I  cannot  but  wish  them  to  be  seen  and  embraced  by  others. 

"  On  the  other  hand,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  these  truths 
have  been  much  disputed ;  that  they  have  not,  like  moral  truths, 
received  that  universal  assent  of  good  men  which  makes  us  shrink 
from  submitting  them  to  question.  And  again,  in  human  affairs, 
the  contest  has  never  been  between  pure  truth  and  pure  error. 
Neither  then  may  we  assume  political  conclusions  as  absolutely 
certain ;  nor  are  political  truths  ever  wholly  identical  with  the  pro- 
fessions or  practice  of  any  party  or  individual.  If  for  the  sake  of 


TO    LECTURE    VIII  40*7 

recommending  any  principle,  we  disguise  the  errors  or  the  crimes 
with  which  it  has  been  in  practice  accompanied>  and  which  in  the 
weakness  of  human  nature  may  perhaps  be  naturally  connected 
with  our  reception  of  it,  then  we  are  guilty  of  most  blameable  par- 
tiality. And  so  it  is  no  less,  if  for  the  sake  of  decrying  an  erro- 
neous principle,  we  depreciate  the  wisdom,  and  the  good  and  noble 
feelings  with  which  error  also  is  frequently,  and  in  some  instances 
naturally  joined.  This  were  to  make  our  sense  of  political  truth 
to  overpower  our  sense  of  moral  truth  ;  a  double  error,  inasmuch 
as  it  is  at  once  the  less  certain ;  and  to  those  who  enjoy  a  Chris- 
tian's hope,  by  far  the  less  worthy. 

"While  then  I  cannot  think  that  political  science  contains  no 
truths,  or  that  it  is  a  matter  of  indifference  whether  they  are  be- 
lieved or  no,  I  have  endeavoured  also  to  remember,  that  be  they 
ever  so  certain,  there  are  other  truths  no  less  sure ;  and  that  one 
truth  must  never  be  sacrificed  to  another.  I  have  tried  to  be  strict- 
ly impartial  in  my  judgment  of  men  and  parties,  without  being  in- 
different to  those  principles  which  were  involved  more  or  less  purely 
in  their  defeat  or  triumph.  I  have  desired  neither  to  be  so  possessed 
with  the  mixed  character  of  all  things  human,  as  to  doubt  the  exist- 
ence of  abstract  truth  ;  nor  so  to  dote  on  any  abstract  truth,  as  to 
think  that  its  presence  in  the  human  mind  is  incompatible  with  any 
evil,  its  absence  incompatible  with  any  good." 

History  of  Rome,  Preface,  vol.  i.  p.  x. 

"  *  *  History,  a  science,  whose  real  difficulties,  uncertainties, 
and  perplexities  are  every  day  more  clearly  seen,  and  of  which  we 
predict  that  it  will  be  one  triumph  achieved  by  the  present  genera- 
tion, that  its  real  nature  will  be  more  fully  understood.  It  is  getting 
more  and  more  to  be  perceived,  that  the  historian  requires  not  merely 
a  profound,  accurate,  and  most  miscellaneous  knowledge  of  facts ;  not 
merely  a  great  measure  of  what  is  commonly  called  '  knowledge  of 
the  world,'  by  which  is  meant  an  ever-energizing  insight  into  the  mo- 
tives of  action,  the  sentiments,  the  habits,  the  tendencies  of  the  crowd 
of  ordinary  men,  (though  this  is  indeed  indispensable ;)  if  he  is  to  be 
really  such,  he  needs  much  more  than  this ;  he  needs  even  more 
absolutely  a  deep  and  penetrating  knowledge  of  the  innermost  re- 
cesses of  the  human  heart.  The  real  movers  of  great  events  are 


408  NOTES 

ordinarily  great  men ;  he  must  have  then  a  glowing  appreciation 
and  hearty  sympathy  for  greatness ;  he  must  be  able  to  recognise, 
understand,  and  assign  to  its  due  place  in  the  scene  of  life  the  ec- 
centricities of  genius,  the  waywardness  of  keen  sensibility.  Then 
the  subtle  influence  of  mind  upon  mind,  the  process  whereby  national 
character  is  formed,  or  again  whereby  each  several  age  is  distin- 
guished by  that  assemblage  of  notions  and  instincts  peculiar  to  it- 
self, which  by  so  universal  and  felicitous  a  figure  is  called  its 
atmosphere ;  this  is  closely  connected  with  the  deepest  metaphy- 
sical problems,  and  yet  meets  the  historian  at  every  step,  as  one 
of  the  very  principal  facts  which  claim  his  recognition,  comprehen- 
sion, and  explanation.  But  in  ecclesiastical  history,  the  powers  of 
mind  he  requires  are  even  rarer,  by  how  much  he  has  to  do  with  a 
more  unfathomable  element,  and  with  phenomena  less  open  to  the 
ordinary  view.  Who  shall  analyze  the  secret  communings  of  the 
holy  and  mortified  soul  with  its  God  ?  Yet  of  this  kind  are  the  ma- 
terials which  have  even  the  principal  share  in  those  events,  which 
are  the  objects  of  his  science." 

*  British  Critic?  vol.  xxxiii.  p.  217.    Jan.  1843. 

NOTE  13.— Page  385. 

Yet  of  that  period  of  history  Coleridge  was  able  to  take  a  more 
catholic  view,  when  he  said,  "  I  know  of  no  portion  of  history  which 
a  man  might  write  with  so  much  pleasure  as  that  of  the  great 
struggle  in  the  time  of  Charles  1.,  because  he  may  feel  the  pro- 
foundest  respect  for  both  parties.  The  side  taken  by  any  particular 
person  was  determined  by  the  point  of  view  which  such  person 
happened  to  command  at  the  commencement  of  the  inevitable  col- 
lision, one  line  seeming  straight  to  this  man,  another  line  to  another. 
No  man  of  that  age  saw  the  truth,  the  whole  truth ;  there  was  not 
light  enough  for  that.  The  consequence,  of  course,  was  a  violent 
exaggeration  of  each  party  for  the  time."  '  Table  Talk?  ii.  171. 
May,  1833. 

NOTE  14.— Page  386. 
Ft  is  remarked  by  Aristotle  ('  CEcon."1  ch.  1)  that  some  arts  are 


TO    LECTURE    VIII.  409 

<holly  distinct,  with  reference  to  construction  and  use,  such  as  the 
making  a  musical  instrument  and  the  performing  on  it ;  but  that  politics 
comprehends  both  the  framing  a  constitution,  and  the  administration 

of  it — rrjs  $f  iro\iTiKfjs  fffTi,  Kal  iroXiv  /£  apxns  ffvarrjaaaBai ,  KOI  virapxovaq  Xfti- 

aavQai  *aX«j.  And  again,  ('PolitS  Hi.  9,)  that  political  society  is 
not  mere  living  together,  but  communion  for  happiness  and  virtue 

— TO  $5fv  evtaipdvus  KOI  KuXwj*  TWV  /caXwj/  apa  irpd^ewv  %aptv  dereov  eivat  rrjv 
iroXmKfrv  Koivuvtav,  aXX'  ou  TOV  ffvtfiv. 

See  also  note  to  '  Appendix  to  Inaugural  Lecture,'  p.  90. 


NOTE  15.— Page  388. 

Dr.  Arnold  hero  gives  the  substance  of  that  '  saying  of  the  Per- 
sian fatalist' — ixPiffTrj  $e  6&6vr]  tffri  rSv  fv  avQpwiroioi  avrrj,  iroXXa  Qpoviovra  pti- 

Ssv&s  Kpartetv — which  was  so  often  in  his  mouth,  and  which  expressed 
a  solicitude  so  habitual  and  characteristic,  that  his  biographer  re- 
marks that  it  "  might  stand  as  the  motto  of  his  whole  mind,"  (ch.  ix.) 
It  is  found  in  Herodotus,  (*  Calliope'  16,)  who  relates  that  when 
Mardonius  was  encamped  in  Bceotia,  before  the  battle  of  Plataea,  he 
and  fifty  of  his  officers  were  invited  to  meet  the  same  number  of 
Thebans  at  a  banquet,  at  which  they  reclined  in  pairs,  a  Persian 
and  a  Theban  upon  each  couch.  During  the  entertainment  one  of 
the  Persians  with  many  tears  predicted  to  his  Theban  companion 
the  speedy  and  utter  destruction  of  the  invading  army ;  and,  when 
asked  why  he  used  no  influence  with  Mardonius  to  avert  it,  he 
answered — "  That  which  God  hath  determined,  it  is  impossible  for 
man  to  turn  aside  ;  for  when  one  would  give  faithful  counsel,  nobody 
is  willing  to  believe  him.  Although  many  of  us  Persians  are  aware 
of  the  end  we  are  coming  to,  we  still  go  on,  because  we  are  bound 
to  our  destiny ;  and  this  is  the  very  bitterest  of  a  man's  griefs,  to 
see  clearly  but  to  have  no  power  to  do  any  thing  at  all." 

NOTE  16.-— Page  390. 

*  *  "It  has  been  well  said  that  long  periods  of  general  suffering 
make  far  less  impression  on  our  minds,  than  the  short  sharp  strug- 
gle in  which  a  few  distinguished  individuals  perish ;  not  that  we 
over-estimate  the  horror  and  the  guilt  of  times  of  open  bloodshed- 

35 


410  NOTES 

ding,  but  we  are  much  too  patient  of  the  greater  misery  and  greatei 
sin  of  periods  of  quiet  legalized  oppression ;  of  that  most  deadly  of 
all  evils,  when  law,  and  even  religion  herself,  are  false  to  their  di- 
vine origin  and  purpose,  and  their  voice  is  no  longer  the  voice  of 
God,  but  of  his  enemy.  In  such  cases  the  evil  derives  advantage, 
in  a  manner,  from  the  very  amount  of  its  own  enormity.  No  pen 
can  record,  no  volume  can  contain  the  details  of  the  daily  and 
hourly  sufferings  of  a  whole  people,  endured  without  intermission, 
through  the  whole  life  of  man,  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave.  The 
mind  itself  can  scarcely  comprehend  the  wide  range  of  the  mis- 
chief :  how  constant  poverty  and  insult,  long  endured  as  the  natural 
portion  of  a  degraded  caste,  bear  with  them  to  the  sufferers  some- 
thing yet  worse  than  pain,  whether  of  the  body  or  the  feelings ;  how 
they  dull  the  understanding  and  poison  the  morals ;  how  ignorance 
and  ill-treatment  combined  are  the  parents  of  universal  suspicion ; 
how  from  oppression  is  produced  habitual  cowardice,  breaking  out 
when  occasion  offers  into  merciless  cruelty ;  how  slaves  become 
naturally  liars ;  how  they,  whose  condition  denies  them  all  noble 
enjoyments,  and  to  whom  looking  forward  is  only  despair,  plunge 
themselves,  with  a  brute's  recklessness,  into  the  lowest  sensual 
pleasures ;  how  the  domestic  circle  itself,  the  last  sanctuary  of  hu- 
man virtue,  becomes  at  length  corrupted,  and  in  the  place  of  natural 
affection  and  parental  care,  there  is  to  be  seen  only  selfishness  and 
unkindness,  and  no  other  anxiety  on  the  part  of  the  parents  for  their 
children,  than  that  they  may,  by  fraud  or  by  violence,  prey  in  their 
turn  upon  that  society  which  they  have  found  their  bitterest  enemy. 
Evils  like  these,  long  working  in  the  heart  of  a  nation,  render  their 
own  cure  impossible  :  a  revolution  may  execute  judgment  on  one 
generation,  and  that  perhaps  the  very  one  which  was  beginning  to 
see  and  to  repent  of  its  inherited  sins ;  but  it  cannot  restore  life  to  the 
morally  dead ;  and  its  ill  success,  as  if  in  this  line  of  evils  no  curse 
should  be  wanting,  is  pleaded  by  other  oppressors  as  a  defence  of 
their  own  iniquity,  and  a  reason  for  perpetuating  it  for  ever." 

History  of  Rome,  vol.  ii.,  p.  19. 


NOTE  17.— Page  392. 
«  The  siege  of  Orleans  is  one  of  the  turning  points  in  the  history 


TO    LECTURE    VIII.  411 

of  nations.  Had  the  English  dominion  in  France  been  established, 
no  man  can  tell  what  might  have  been  the  consequence  to  England, 
which  would  probably  have  become  an  appendage  to  France.  So 
little  does  the  prosperity  of  a  people  depend  upon  success  in  war, 
that  two  of  the  greatest  defeats  we  ever  had  have  been  two  of  our 
greatest  blessings,  Orleans  and  Bannockburn.  It  is  curious,  too, 
that  in  Edward  II. 's  reign  the  victory  over  the  Irish  proved  our 
curse,  as  our  defeat  by  the  Scots  turned  out  a  blessing.  Had  the 
Irish  remained  independent,  they  might  afterwards  have  been  united 
to  us,  as  Scotland  was ;  and  had  Scotland  been  reduced  to  subjec- 
tion, it  would  have  been  another  curse  to  us,  like  Ireland."* 

*  "  Bannockburn,"  Dr.  Arnold  used  to  say,  "  ought  to  be  celebrated  by  Englishmen 
as  a  national  festival,  and  Athunree  lamented  as  a  national  judgment." 

'Life  and  Correspondence,'  Appendix  C,  No.  IX. 


NOTE  18.— Page  393. 

The  little  volume  on  the  literature  of  France  during  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  by  M.  de  Barante,  appears  to  have  been  a  favourite 
book  with  Dr.  Arnold :  he  made  some  use  of  it  as  a  text-book  in 
Rugby  School.  The  other  reference  in  the  Lecture  is  to  the 
*  Melanges  Historiques  et  LitterairesJ  of  the  same  author. 

NOTE  19.— Page  393. 

It  is  the  expression  put  into  the  mouth  of  Pericles,  when,  in  the 
exordium  of  his  funeral  oration,  he  speaks  of  the  risk  in  honouring  the 
dead  by  words — that  the  memory  of  their  virtues  may  be  endan- 
gered— depending  for  fame  or  discredit  upon  one  man,  whether  he 

speak   well  or  ill, — /*»)   ev  ivi  avSpl  TroXXwv   operas  KivtwrifaQai   t?  TC  ical 
\eipov 


APPENDIX. 


No.  1. 

(See  p.  63,  Note  14  to  '  Inaugural  Lecture.') 

Mr.  Stanley  has  given,  in  chapter  iv.  of  the  *  Life  and  Corre* 
spondence?  a  faithful  and  judicious  character  of  Dr.  Arnold  as  an 
historian — a  student  and  writer  of  history,  and  I  introduce  it  here, 
in  illustration  of  these  Lectures  : 

"  His  early  fondness  for  history  grew  constantly  upon  him ;  he 
delighted  in  it,  as  feeling  it  to  be  '  simply  a  search  after  truth, 
where,  by  daily  becoming  more  familiar  with  it,  truth  seems  for 
evermore  within  your  grasp  :'  the  images  of  the  past  were  habitu- 
ally in  his  mind,  and  haunted  him  even  in  sleep,  with  a  vividness 
which  would  bring  before  him  some  of  the  most  striking  passages 
in  ancient  history — the  death  of  Caesar,  the  wars  of  Sylla,  the  siege 
of  Syracuse,  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem — as  scenes  in  which  he 
was  himself  taking  an  active  part.  What  objects  he  put  before 
him,  as  an  historian,  may  best  be  judged  from  his  own  view  of  the 
province  of  history.  It  was,  indeed,  altogether  imperfect,  in  his 
judgment,  unless  it  was  not  only  a  plan  but  a  picture ;  unless  it  repre- 
sented '  what  men  thought,  what  they  hated,  and  what  they  loved  ;' 
unless  it  *  pointed  the  way  to  that  higher  region,  within  which  she 
herself  is  not  permitted  to  enter  ;'*  and  in  the  details  of  geographical 
or  military  descriptions  he  took  especial  pleasure,  and  himself  re- 
markably excelled  in  them.  '  Still  it  was  in  the  dramatic  faculty  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  metaphysical  faculty  on  the  other  hand,  that 
he  felt  himself  deficient;  and  it  is  accordingly  in  the  political 
rather  than  in  the  philosophical  or  biographical  department  of  his- 
tory— in  giving  a  combined  view  of  different  states  or  of  different 
periods — in  analyzing  laws,  parties,  and  institutions,  that  his  chief 
merit  consists. 

*  History  of  Rome,  vol.  i.  p.  98;  vol.  ii.  p.  173. 
35* 


414  APPENDIX. 

"  What  were  his  views  of  Modern  History  will  appear  in  the 
mention  of  his  Oxford  Professorship.  But  it  was  in  ancient  his- 
tory that  he  naturally  felt  the  greatest  delight.  '  I  linger  round  a 
subject,  which  nothing  could  tempt  me  to  quit  but  the  conscious- 
ness of  treating  it  too  unworthily,'  were  his  expressions  of  regret, 
when  he  had  finished  his  edition  of  Thucydides ;  '  the  subject  of 
what  is  miscalled  ancient  history,  the  really  modern  history  of  the 
civilization  of  Greece  and  Rome,  which  has  for  years  interested  me 
so  deeply,  that  it  is  painful  to  feel  myself,  after  all,  so  unable  to 
paint  it  fully.'  His  earliest  labours  had  been  devoted  not  to  Roman 
but  to  Greek  history ;  and  there  still  remains  amongst  his  MSS.  a 
short  sketch  of  the  rise  of  the  Greek  nation,  written  between  1820 
and  1823,  and  carried  down  to  the  time  of  the  Persian  wars.  And 
in  later  years,  his  edition  of  Thucydides,  undertaken  originally  with 
the  design  of  illustrating  that  author  rather  historically  than  philo- 
logically,  contains  in  its  notes  and  appendices,  the  most  systematic 
remains  of  his  studies  in  this  direction,  and  at  one  time  promised 
to  embody  his  thoughts  on  the  most  striking  periods  of  Athenian 
history.  Nor,  after  he  had  abandoned  this  design,  did  he  ever  lose 
his  interest  in  the  subject ;  his  real  sympathies  (if  one  may  venture 
to  say  so)  were  always  with  Athens  rather  than  with  Rome ;  some 
of  the  most  characteristic  points  of  his  mind  were  Greek  rather 
than  Roman ;  from  the  vacancy  of  the  early  Roman  annals  he  was 
forever  turning  to  the  contemporary  records  of  the  Greek  common- 
wealths, to  pay  *  an  involuntary  tribute  of  respect  and  affection  to  old 
associations  and  immortal  names,  on  which  we  can  scarcely  dwell 
too  long  or  too  often ;'  the  falsehood  and  emptiness  of  the  Latin 
historians  were  for  ever  suggesting  the  contrast  of  their  Grecian 
rivals ;  the  two  opposite  poles  in  which  he  seemed  to  realize  his 
ideas  of  the  worst  and  the  best  qualities  of  an  historian,  with  feel- 
ings of  personal  antipathy  and  sympathy  towards  each,  were  Livy 
and  Thucydides. 

"  Even  these  scattered  notices  of  what  he  once  hoped  to  have 
worked  out  more  fully,  will  often  furnish  the  student  of  Greek  his- 
tory with  the  means  of  entering  upon  its  most  remarkable  epochs 
under  his  guidance.  Those  who  have  carefully  read  his  works,  or 
shared  his  instructions,  can  still  enjoy  the  light  which  he  has  thrown 
on  the  rise  and  progress  of  the  Greek  commonwealths,  and  their 


APPENDIX.  415 

analogy  with  the  States  of  modern  Europe ;  and  apply,  in  their 
manifold  relations,  the  principles  which  he  has  laid  down  with  re- 
gard to  the  peculiar  ideas  attached  in  the  Greek  world  to  race,  to 
citizenship,  and  to  law.  They  can  still  catch  the  glow  of  almost 
passionate  enthusiasm,  with  which  he  threw  himself  into  the  age 
of  Pericles,  and  the  depth  of  emotion  with  which  he  watched,  like 
an  eye-witness,  the  failure  of  the  Syracusan  expedition.  They  can 
still  trace  the  almost  personal  sympathy  with  which  he  entered  into 
the  great  crisis  of  Greek  society,  when  '  Socrates,  the  faithful 
servant  of  truth  and  virtue,  fell  a  victim  to  the  hatred  alike  of  the 
democratical  and  aristocratical  vulgar  ;'  when  '  all  that  audacity  can 
dare,  or  subtlety  contrive,  to  make  the  words  of  '  good'  and  '  evil' 
change  their  meaning,  was  tried  in  the  days  of  Plato,  and  by  his 
eloquence,  and  wisdom,  and  faith  unshaken,  was  put  to  shame.' 
They  can  well  imagine  the  intense  admiration,  with  which  he 
would  have  dwelt  in  detail,  on  what  he  has  now  left  only  in  faint 
outline.  Alexander  at  Babylon  impressed  him  as  one  of  the  most 
solemn  scenes  in  all  history ;  the  vision  of  Alexander's  career,  even 
to  the  lively  image  which  he  entertained  of  his  youthful  and  god- 
like beauty,  rose  constantly  before  him  as  the  most  signal  instance 
of  the  effects  of  a  good  education  against  the  temptations  of  power  ; 
as  being  beyond  any  thing  recorded  in  Roman  history,  the  career 
of  *  the  greatest  man  of  the  ancient  world ;'  and  even  after  the 
period,  when  Greece  ceased  to  possess  any  real  interest  for  him, 
he  loved  to  hang  with  a  melancholy  pleasure  over  the  last  decay  of 
Greek  genius  and  wisdom — '  the  worn-out  and  cast-off  skin,  from 
which  the  living  serpent  had  gone  forth  to  carry  his  youth  and 
vigour  to  other  lands.' 

"  But,  deep  as  was  his  interest  in  Grecian  history,  and  though  in 
some  respects  no  other  part  of  ancient  literature  derived  so  great  a 
light  from  his  researches,  it  was  to  his  History  of  Rome  that  he 
looked  as  the  chief  monument  of  his  historical  fame.  Led  to  it 
partly  by  his  personal  feeling  of  regard  towards  Niebuhr  and  Cheva- 
lier Bunsen,  and  by  the  sense  of  their  encouragement,  there  was, 
moreover,  something  in  the  subject  itself  peculiarly  attractive  to 
him,  whether  in  the  magnificence  of  the  field  which  it  embraced — • 
('  the  History  of  Rome,'  he  said,  '  must  be  in  some  sort  the  History 
of  the  World,') — or  in  the  congenial  element  which  he  naturally 


416  APPENDIX. 

found  in  the  character  of  a  people,  *  whose  distinguishing  quality 
was  their  love  of  institutions  and  order,  and  their  reverence  for 
law.'  Accordingly,  after  approaching  it  in  various  forms,  he  at  last 
conceived  the  design  of  the  work,  of  which  the  three  published 
volumes  are  the  result,  but  which  he  had  intended  to  carry  down, 
in  successive  periods,  to  what  seemed  to  him  its  natural  termina- 
tion in  the  coronation  of  Charlemagne.  (Pref.  vol.  i.  p.  vii.) 

"  The  two  earlier  volumes  occupy  a  place  in  the  History  of  Rome, 
and  of  the  ancient  world  generally,  which  in  England  had  not  and 
has  not  been  otherwise  filled  up.  Yet  in  the  subjects  of  which  they 
treat,  his  peculiar  talents  had  hardly  a  fair  field  for  their  exercise. 
The  want  of  personal  characters  and  of  distinct  events,  which  Nie- 
buhr  was  to  a  certain  extent  able  to  supply  from  the  richness  of  his 
learning  and  the  felicity  of  his  conjectures,  was  necessarily  a  disad- 
vantage to  an  historian  whose  strength  lay  in  combining  what  was 
already  known,  rather  than  in  deciphering  what  was  unknown,  and 
whose  veneration  for  his  predecessor  made  him  distrustful  not  only 
of  dissenting  from  his  judgment,  but  even  of  seeing  or  discovering 
more  than  had  been  by  him  seen  or  discovered  before.  *  No  man,? 
as  he  said,  '  can  step  gracefully  or  boldly  when  he  is  groping  his 
way  in  the  dark,'  (Hist.  Rome,  i.  p.  133,)  and  it  is  with  a  melan- 
choly interest  that  we  read  his  complaint  of  the  obscurity  of  the 
subject :  '  I  can  but  encourage  myself,  whilst  painfully  feeling  my 
way  in  such  thick  darkness,  with  the  hope  of  arriving  at  last  at  the 
light,  and  enjoying  all  the  freshness  and  fulness  of  a  detailed  con- 
temporary history.'  (Hist.  Rome,  ii.  p.  447.)  But  the  narrative 
of  the  second  Punic  war,  which  occupies  the  third  and  posthumous 
volume,  both  as  being  comparatively  unbroken  ground,  and  as  af- 
fording so  full  a  scope  for  his  talents  in  military  and  geographical 
descriptions,  may  well  be  taken  as  a  measure  of  his  historical 
powers,  and  has  been  pronounced  by  its  editor,  Archdeacon  Hare, 
to  be  the  first  history  which  *  has  given  any  thing  like  an  adequate 
representation  of  the  wonderful  genius  and  noble  character  of  Han- 
nibal.' With  this  volume  the  work  was  broken  off:  but  it  is  im- 
possible not  to  dwell  for  a  moment  on  what  it  would  have  been  had 
he  lived  to  complete  it. 

"  The  outline  in  his  early  articles  in  the  Encyclopaedia  Metropoli- 
tana,  of  the  later  history  of  the  Civil  Wars.  '  a  subject  so  glorious,' 


APPENDIX.  417 

he  writes  in  1824,  'that  I  groan  beforehand  when  I  think  how  cer- 
tainly I  shall  fail  in  doing  it  justice,'  provokes  of  itself  the  desire  to 
see  how  he  would  have  gone  over  the  same  ground  again  with  his 
added  knowledge  and  experience — how  the  characters  of  the  time, 
which  even  in  this  rough  sketch  stand  out  more  clearly  than  in  any 
other  English  work  on  the  same  period,  would  have  been  repro- 
duced— how  he  would  have  represented  the  pure*  character  and 
military  genius  of  his  favourite  hero,  Pompey — or  expressed  his 
mingled  admiration  and  abhorrence  of  the  intellectual  power  and 
moral  degradation  of  Caesar ;  how  he  would  have  done  justice  to 
the  coarseness  and  cruelty  of  Marius,  '  the  lowest  of  democrats' — 
or  amidst  all  his  crimes,  to  the  views  of  '  the  most  sincere  of  Aris- 
tocrats,' Sylla.  And  in  advancing  to  the  farther  times  of  the  Empire, 
his  scattered  hints  exhibit  his  strong  desire  to  reach  those  events, 
to  which  all  the  intervening  volumes  seemed  to  him  only  a  prelude. 
'  I  would  not  overstrain  my  eyes  or  my  faculties,'  he  writes  in 
1840,  *  but  whilst  eyesight  and  strength  are  yet  undecayed,  I  want 
to  get  through  the  earlier  Roman  History,  to  come  down  to  the 
Imperial  and  Christian  times,  which  form  a  subject  of  such  deep 
interest.'  What  his  general  admiration  for  Niebuhr  was  as  a  prac- 
tical motive  in  the  earlier  part  of  his  work,  that  his  deep  aversion 
to  Gibbon,  as  a  man,  was  in  the  latter  part.  '  My  highest  ambition,' 
he  said,  as  early  as  1826, '  and,  what  I  hope  to  do  as  far  as  I  can,  is 
to  make  my  history  the  very  reverse  of  Gibbon  in  this  respect — that 
whereas  the  whole  spirit  of  his  work,  from  its  low  morality,  is  hostile 
to  religion,  without  speaking  directly  against  it ;  so  my  greatest 
desire  would  be,  in  my  History,  by  its  high  morals  and  its  general 
tone,  to  be  of  use  to  the  cause,  without  actually  bringing  it  forward.' 

*  It  may  be  necessary  (especially  since  the  recent  publication  of  Niebuhr's  Lee 
tures,  where  a  very  different  opinion  is  advocated)  to  refer  to  Dr.  Arnold's  own  esti- 
mate of  the  moral  character  of  Pompey,  which,  it  is  believed,  he  retained  unaltered, 
in  the  Encyc.  Metrop.  ii.  252.  The  following  extract  from  a  letter  of  General  Napier 
Tiay  not  be  without  interest  in  confirmation  of  an  opinion  which  he  had  himself 
formed  independently  of  it.  "  Tell  Dr.  Arnold  to  beware  of  falling  into  the  error  of 
Pompey  being  a  bad  general ;  he  was  a  very  great  one,  perhaps  in  a  purely  military 
sense  greater  than  Caesar."  At  the  same  time  it  should  be  observed,  that  his  admi- 
ration of  Caesar's  intellectual  greatness  was  always  very  strong,  and  it  was  almos' 
with  an  indignant  animation  that,  on  the  starting  of  an  objection  that  Caesar  s  victo- 
ries were  only  gained  over  inferior  enemies,  he  at  once  denied  the  inference,  and 
instantly  recounted  campaign  after  campaign  in  refutation. 


418  APPENDIX. 

"  There  would  have  been  the  place  for  his  unfolding  the  rise  of 
the  Christian  Church,  not  in  a  distinct  ecclesiastical  history,  but  as 
he  thought  it  ought  to  be  written,  in  conjunction  with  the  history 
of  the  world.  '  The  period  from  Augustus  to  Aurelian,'  he  writes, 
as  far  back  as  1824,  '  I  will  not  willingly  give  up  to  any  one,  be- 
cause I  have  a  particular  object,  namely,  to  blend  the  civil  and  re- 
ligious history  together  more  than  has  ever  yet  been  done.'  There 
he  would,  on  the  one  hand,  have  expressed  his  view  of  the  external 
influences,  which  checked  the  free  growth  of  the  early  Church—- 
the gradual  revival  of  Judaic  principles  under  a  Christian  form — 
the  gradual  extinction  of  individual  responsibility,  under  the  system 
of  government,  Roman  and  Gentile  in  its  origin,  which,  according 
to  his  latest  opinion,  took  possession  of  the  Church  rulers  from  the 
time  of  Cyprian.  There,  on  the  other  hand,  he  would  have  dwelt 
on  the  self-denying  zeal  and  devotion  to  truth,  which  peculiarly 
endeared  to  him  the  very  name  of  Martyr,  and  on  the  bond  of 
Christian  brotherhood,  which  he  delighted  to  feel  with  such  men 
as  Athanasius  and  Augustine,  discerning,  even  in  what  he  thought 
their  weaknesses,  a  signal  testimony  to  the  triumph  of  Christianity, 
unaided  by  other  means,  than  its  intrinsic  excellence  and  holiness 
Lastly,  with  that  analytical  method,  which  he  delighted  to  pursue 
in  his  historical  researches,  he  would  have  traced  to  their  source 
'  those  evil  currents  of  neglect,  of  uncharitableness,  and  of  igno- 
rance, whose  full  streams  we  now  find  so  pestilent,'  first,  *  in  the 
social  helplessness  and  intellectual  frivolousness'  of  the  close  of  the 
Roman  empire ;  and  then,  in  that  event  which  had  attracted  his 
earliest  interest,  '  the  nominal  conversion  of  the  northern  nations  to 
Christianity — a  vast  subject,  and  one  of  the  greatest  importance 
both  to  the  spiritual  and  temporal  advancement  of  the  nations  of 
Europe,  (Serm.  vol.  i.  p.  88,)  as  explaining  the  more  confirmed 
separation  of  clergy  and  laity  in  later  times,  and  the  incomplete  in- 
fluence which  Christianity  has  exercised  upon  the  institutions  eren 
of  Christian  countries.'  (Serm.  vol.  ii.  pref.  p.  xiv.)" 


APPENDIX. 

No.  II. 

(See  p.  63,  note  14  to  '  Inaugural  Lecture.*) 
ON  HISTORICAL  INSTRUCTION. 

*'  *  *  *  In  the  statement  of  the  business  of  Rugby  school  which 
has  been  given  above,  one  part  of  it  will  be  found  to  consist  of  works 
of  modern  history.  An  undue  importance  is  attached  by  some  per- 
sons to  this  circumstance,  and  those  who  would  care  little  to  have 
their  sons  familiar  with  the  history  of  the  Peloponnesian  war  are  de- 
lighted that  they  should  study  the  Campaigns  of  Frederic  the  Great 
or  of  Napoleon.  Information  about  modern  events  is  more  useful, 
they  think,  than  that  which  relates  to  antiquity ;  and  such  informa- 
tion they  wish  to  be  given  to  their  children. 

"  This  favourite  notion  of  filling  boys  with  useful  information  is 
'ikely,  we  think,  to  be  productive  of  some  mischief.  It  is  a  carica- 
ture of  the  principles  of  inductive  philosophy,  which,  while  it  taught 
the  importance  of  a  knowledge  of  facts,  never  imagined  that  this 
knowledge  was  of  itself  equivalent  to  wisdom.  Now  it  is  not  so 
much  our  object  to  give  boys  *  useful  information,'  as  to  facilitate 
their  gaining  it  hereafter  for  themselves,  and  to  enable  them  to  turn 
it  to  account  when  gained.  The  first  is  to  be  effected  by  supplying 
them  on  any  subject  with  a  skeleton  which  they  may  fill  up  here- 
after. For  instance,  a  real  knowledge  of  history  in  after  life  is 
highly  desirable ;  let  us  see  how  education  can  best  facilitate  the 
gaining  of  it.  It  should  begin  by  impressing  on  a  boy's  mind  the 
names  of  the  greatest  men  of  different  periods,  and  by  giving  him  a 
notion  of  their  order  in  point  of  time,  and  the  part  of  the  earth  on 
which  they  lived.  This  is  best  done  by  a  set  of  pictures  bound  up 
together  in  a  volume,  such,  for  instance,  as  those  which  illustrated 
Mrs.  Trimmer's  little  histories,  and  to  which  the  writer  of  this  ar- 
ticle is  glad  to  acknowledge  his  own  early  obligations.  Nor  could 
better  service  be  rendered  to  the  cause  of  historical  instruction  than 
by  publishing  a  volume  of  prints  of  universal  history,  accompanied 
with  a  very  short  description  of  each.  Correctness  of  costume  in 
such  prints,  or  good  taste  in  the  drawing,  however  desirable  if  they 
can  be  easily  obtained,  are  of  very  subordinate  importance ;  the 
great  matter  is  that  the  print  should  be  striking,  and  full  enough  to 


420  APPENDIX. 

excite  and  to  gratify  curiosity.  By  these  means  a  lasting  associa- 
tion is  obtained  with  the  greatest  names  in  history,  and  the  most 
remarkable  actions  of  their  lives  :  while  their  chronological  arrange- 
ment is  learnt  at  the  same  time  from  the  order  of  the  pictures ;  a 
boy's  memory  being  very  apt  to  recollect  the  place  which  a  favourite 
print  holds  in  a  volume,  whether  it  comes  towards  the  beginning, 
middle,  or  end,  what  picture  comes  before  it,  and  what  follows  it. 
Such  pictures  should  contain  as  much  as  possible  the  poetry  of  his- 
tory ;  the  most  striking  characters,  and  most  heroic  actions,  whether 
of  doing  or  of  suffering ;  but  they  should  not  embarrass  themselves 
with  its  philosophy,  with  the  causes  of  revolutions,  the  progress  of 
society,  or  the  merits  of  great  political  questions.  Their  use  is  of 
another  kind,  to  make  some  great  name,  and  great  action  of  every 
period,  familiar  to  the  mind  ;  that  so  in  taking  up  any  more  detailed 
history  or  biography,  (and  education  should  never  forget  the  im- 
portance of  preparing  a  boy  to  derive  benefit  from  his  accidental 
reading,)  he  may  have  some  association  with  the  subject  of  it,  and 
may  not  feel  himself  to  be  on  ground  wholly  unknown  to  him.  He 
may  thus  be  led  to  open  volumes  into  which  he  would  otherwise 
have  never  thought  of  looking  :  he  need  not  read  them  through — 
indeed  it  is  sad  folly  to  require  either  man  or  boy  to  read  through 
every  book  they  look  at,  but  he  will  see  what  is  said  about  such  and 
such  persons  or  actions ;  and  then  he  will  learn  by  the  way  some- 
thing about  other  persons  and  other  actions  ;  and  will  have  his  stock 
of  associations  increased,  so  as  to  render  more  and  more  informa- 
tion acceptable  to  him. 

"  After  this  foundation,  the  object  sfill  being  rather  to  create  an 
appetite  for  knowledge  than  to  satisfy  it,  it  would  be  desirable  to 
furnish  a  boy  with  histories  of  one  or  two  particular  countries, 
Greece,  Rome,  and  England,  for  instance,  written  at  no  great 
length,  and  these  also  written  poetically  much  more  than  philo- 
sophically, with  much  liveliness  of  style,  and  force  of  painting,  so 
as  to  excite  an  interest  about  the  persons  and  things  spoken  of.  The 
absence  of  all  instruction  in  politics  or  political  economy,  nay  even 
an  absolute  erroneousness  of  judgment  in  such  matters,  provided 
always  that  it  involves  no  wrong  principle  in  morality,  are  compara  - 
tively  of  slight  importance.  Let  the  boy  gain,  if  possible,  a  strong 
appetite  for  knowledge  to  begin  with  ;  it  is  a  later  part  of  education 


APPENDIX.  421 

which  should  enable  him  to  pursue  it  sensibly,  and  to  make  it,  when 
obtained,  wisdom. 

"  But  should  his  education,  as  is  often  the  case,  be  cut  short  by 
circumstances,  so  that  he  never  receives  its  finishing  lessons,  will 
he  not  feel  the  want  of  more  direct  information  and  instruction  in  its 
earlier  stages  1  The  answer  is,  that  every  thing  has  its  proper  sea- 
son, and  if  summer  be  cut  out  of  the  year,  it  is  vain  to  suppose  that 
the  work  of  summer  can  be  forestalled  in  spring.  Undoubtedly, 
much  is  lost  by  this  abridgement  of  the  term  of  education,  and  it 
is  well  to  insist  strongly  upon  the  evil,  as  it  might,  in  many  in- 
stances, be  easily  avoided.  But  if  it  is  unavoidable,  the  evil  conse- 
quences arising  from  it  cannot  be  prevented.  Fulness  of  knowledge 
arid  sagacity  of  judgment  are  fruits  not  to  be  looked  for  in  early 
youth  ;  and  he  who  endeavours  to  force  them  does  but  interfere  with 
the  natural  growth  of  the  plant,  and  prematurely  exhaust  its  vigour. 

"  In  the  common  course  of  things,  however,  where  a  young  per- 
son's education  is  not  interrupted,  the  later  process  is  one  of  exceed- 
ing importance  and  interest.  Supposing  a  boy  to  possess  that  outline 
of  general  history  which  his  prints  and  his  abridgements  will  have 
given  him,  with  his  associations,  so  far  as  they  go,  strong  and  lively, 
and  his  desire  of  increased  knowledge  keen,  the  next  thing  to  be  done 
is  to  set  him  to  read  some  first-rate  historian,  whose  mind  was 
formed  in,  and  bears  the  stamp  of  some  period  of  advanced  civili- 
zation, analogous  to  that  in  which  we  now  live.  In  other  words, 
he  should  read  Thucydides  or  Tacitus,  or  any  writer  equal  to  them, 
if  such  can  be  found,  belonging  to  the  third  period  of  full  civiliza- 
tion, that  of  modern  Europe  since  the  middle  ages.  The  particular 
subject  of  the  history  is  of  little  moment,  so  long  as  it  be  taken 
neither  from  the  barbarian,  nor  from  the  romantic, hut  from  the  phi- 
losophical or  civilized  stage  of  human  society ;  and  so  long  as  the 
writer  be  a  man  of  commanding  mind,  who  has  fully  imbibed  the 
influences  of  his  age,  yet  without  bearing  its  exclusive  impress. 
And  the  study  of  such  a  work  under  an  intelligent  teacher  becomes 
indeed  the  key  of  knowledge  and  of  wisdom:  first  it  affords  an  ex- 
ample of  good  historical  evidence,  and  hence  the  pupil  may  be 
taught  to  notice  from  time  to  time  the  various  criteria  of  a  credible 
narrative,  and  by  the  rule  of  contraries  to  observe  what  are  the  in- 
dications of  a  testimony  questionable,  suspicious,  or  worthless.  Un- 

36 


422  APPENDIX. 

due  scepticism  may  be  repressed  by  showing  how  generally  truth 
has  been  attained  when  it  has  been  honestly  and  judiciously  sought ; 
while  credulity  may  be  checked  by  pointing  out,  on  the  other  hand, 
how  manifold  are  the  errors  into  which  those  are  betrayed  whose 
intellect  or  whose  principles  have  been  found  wanting.  Now  too 
the  time  is  come  when  the  pupil  may  be  introduced  to  that  high 
philosophy  which  unfolds  the  'causes  of  things.'  The  history  with 
which  he  is  engaged  presents  a  view  of  society  in  its  most  advanced 
state,  when  the  human  mind  is  highly  developed,  and  the  various 
crises  which  affect  the  growth  of  the  political  fabric  are  all  over- 
past. Let  him  be  taught  to  analyze  the  subject  thus  presented  to 
him ;  to  trace  back  institutions,  civil  and  religious,  to  their  origin  ; 
to  explore  the  elements  of  the  national  character,  as  now  exhibited 
in  maturity,  in  the  vicissitudes  of  the  nation's  fortune,  and  the  moral 
and  physical  qualities  of  its  race ;  to  observe  how  the  morals  and 
the  mind  of  the  people  have  been  subject  to  a  succession  of  in- 
fluences, some  accidental,  others  regular;  to  see  and  remember 
what  critical  seasons  of  improvement  have  been  neglected, — what 
besetting  evils  have  been  wantonly  aggravated  by  wickedness  or 
folly.  In  short,  the  pupil  may  be  furnished  as  it  were  with  certain 
formulae,  which  shall  enable  him  to  read  all  history  beneficially ; 
which  shall  teach  him  what  to  look  for  in  it,  how  to  judge  of  it,  and 
how  to  apply  it. 

"  Education  will  thus  fulfil  its  great  business,  as  far  as  regards 
the  intellect,  to  inspire  it  with  a  desire  of  knowledge,  and  to  fur- 
nish it  with  power  to  obtain  and  to  profit  by  what  it  seeks  for. 
And  a  man  thus  educated,  even  though  he  knows  no  history  in  de- 
tail but  that  which  is  called  ancient,  will  be  far  better  fitted  to  enter 
on  public  life,  than  he  who  could  tell  the  circumstances  and  the 
date  of  every  battle  and  every  debate  throughout  the  last  century ; 
whose  information,  in  the  common  sense  of  the  term,  about  modern 
history,  might  be  twenty  times  more  minute.  The  fault  of  systems 
of  classical  education  in  some  instances  has  been,  not  that  they  did 
not  teach  modern  history,  but  that  they  did  not  prepare  and  dispose 
their  pupils  to  acquaint  themselves  with  it  afterwards  ;  not  that 
they  did  not  attempt  to  raise  an  impossible  superstructure,  but  that 
they  did  not  prepare  the  ground  for  the  foundation,  and  put  the  ma- 
terials within  reach  of  the  builder. 


APPENDIX.  423 

"  That  impatience,  which  is  one  of  the  diseases  of  the  age,  is  in 
great  danger  of  possessing  the  public  mind  on  the  subject  of  edu- 
cation ;  an  unhealthy  restlessness  may  succeed  to  lethargy.  Men 
are  not  contented  with  sowing  the  seed,  unless  they  can  also  reap 
the  fruit ;  forgetting  how  often  it  is  the  law  of  our  condition, — 
'  that  one  soweth,  and  another  reapeth.'  It  is  no  wisdom  to  make 
boys  prodigies  of  information ;  but  it  is  our  wisdom  and  our  duty 
to  cultivate  their  faculties  each  in  its  season — first  the  memory  and 
imagination,  and  then  the  judgment;  to  furnish  them  with  the 
means,  and  to  excite  the  desire,  of  improving  themselves,  and  to 
wait  with  confidence  for  God's  blessing  on  the  result." 

Dr.  ARNOLD'S  Description  of  Rugby  School, 

' 'Journal  of  Education?  voL  vii.  pp.  245-9. 

No.  III. 

(See  p.  142,  note  1  to  Lecture  II.) 
ON  TRANSLATION. 

"  *  *  *  All  this  supposes,  indeed,  that  classical  instruction  should 
be  sensibly  conducted  ;  it  requires  that  a  classical  teacher  should  be 
fully  acquainted  with  modern  history  and  modern  literature,  no  less 
than  with  those  of  Greece  and  Rome.  What  is,  or  perhaps  what 
used  to  be,  called  a  mere  scholar,  cannot  possibly  communicate  to 
his  pupils  the  main  advantages  of  a  classical  education.  The  know- 
ledge of  the  past  is  valuable,  because  without  it  our  knowledge  of 
the  present  and  of  the  future  must  be  scanty  ;  but  if  the  knowledge 
of  the  past  be  confined  wholly  to  itself;  if,  instead  of  being  made 
to  bear  upon  things  around  us,  it  be  totally  isolated  from  them,  and 
so  disguised  by  vagueness  and  misapprehension  as  to  appear  inca- 
pable of  illustrating  them,  then  indeed  it  becomes  little  better  than 
laborious  trifling,  and  they  who  declaim  against  it  may.be  fully 
forgiven. 

"  To  select  one  instance  of  this  perversion,  what  can  be  more  ab- 
surd than  the  practice  of  what  is  called  construing  Greek  and  Latin, 
continued  as  it  often  is  even  with  pupils  of  an  advanced  age  *  The 
study  of  Greek  and  Latin  considered  as  mere  languages,  is  of  im- 
portance, mainly  as  it  enables  us  to  understand  and  employ  well 


424  APPENDIX. 

that  language  in  which  we  commonly  think,  and  speak,  and  write 
It  does  this,  because  Greek  and  Latin  are  specimens  of  language 
at  once  highly  perfect  and  incapable  of  being  understood  without 
long  and  minute  attention :  the  study  of  them,  therefore,  naturally 
involves  that  of  the  general  principles  of  grammar ;  "while  their 
peculiar  excellences  illustrate  the  points  which  render  language 
clear,  and  forcible,  and  beautiful.  But  our  application  of  this  gen- 
eral knowledge  must  naturally  be  to  our  own  language,  to  show  us 
what  are  its  peculiarities,  what  its  beauties,  what  its  defects ;  to 
teach  us  by  the  patterns  or  the  analogies  offered  by  other  lan- 
guages, how  the  effect  which  we  admire  in  them  may  be  produced 
with  a  somewhat  different  instrument.  Every  lesson  in  Greek  or 
Latin  may  and  ought  to  be  made  a  lesson  in  English.  The  trans- 
lation of  every  sentence  in  Demosthenes  or  Tacitus  is  properly  an 
exercise  in  extemporaneous  English  composition  ;  a  problem,  how 
to  express  with  equal  brevity,  clearness,  and  force,  in  our  own  Ian 
guage,  the  thought  which  the  original  author  has  so  admirably  ex- 
pressed in  his.  But  the  system  of  construing,  far  from  assisting,  is 
positively  injurious  to  our  knowledge  and  use  of  English  ;  it  accus- 
toms us  to  a  tame  and  involved  arrangement  of  our  words,  and  to 
the  substitution  of  foreign  idioms  in  the  place  of  such  as  are  na- 
tional ;  it  obliges  us  to  caricature  every  sentence  that  we  render, 
by  turning  what  is,  in  its  original  dress,  beautiful  and  natural,  into 
something  which  is  neither  Greek  nor  English,  stiff,  obscure,  and 
flat,  exemplifying  all  the  faults  incident  to  language,  and  excluding 
every  excellence. 

"  The  exercise  of  translation,  on  the  other  hand,  meaning,  by 
translation,  the  expressing  of  an  entire  sentence  of  a  foreign  lan- 
guage by  an  entire  sentence  of  our  own,  as  opposed  to  the  render- 
ing separately  into  English  either  every  separate  word,  or  at  most 
only  parts  of  the  sentence,  whether  larger  or  smaller,  the  exercise 
of  translation  is  capable  of  furnishing  improvement  to  students  of 
Tery  age,  according  to  the  measure  of  their  abilities  and  know* 
ledge.  The  late  Dr.  Gabell,  than  whom  in  these  matters  there  can 
be  no  higher  authority,  when  he  was  the  under-master  of  Win- 
chester College,  never  allowed  even  the  lowest  forms  to  construe, 
they  always  were  taught,  according  to  his  expression,  to  read  int* 
English.  From  this  habit  even  the  youngest  boys  derived  several 


APPENDIX.  425 

advantages ;  the  meaning  of  the  sentence  was  more  clearly  seen 
when  it  was  read  all  at  once  in  English,  than  when  every  clause 
or  word  of  English  was  interrupted  by  the  intermixture  of  patches 
of  Latin ;  and  any  absurdity  in  the  translation  was  more  apparent. 
Again,  there  was  the  habit  gained  of  constructing  English  sentences 
upon  any  given  subject,  readily  and  correctly.  Thirdly,  with  re- 
spect to  Latin  itself,  the  practice  was  highly  useful.  By  being 
accustomed  to  translate  idiomatically,  a  boy,  when  turning  his  own 
thoughts  into  Latin,  was  enabled  to  render  his  own  natural  English 
into  the  appropriate  expressions  in  Latin.  Having  been  always  ac- 
customed, for  instance,  to  translate  '  quum  venisset'  by  the  particle 

*  having  come,'  he  naturally,  when  he  wishes  to  translate  '  having 
come,'  into  Latin,  remembers  what  expression  in  Latin  is  equivalent 
to  it.     Whereas,  if  he  has  been  taught  to  construe  literally  '  when  he 
had  come,'  he  never  has  occasion  to  use  the  English  participle  in  his 
translations  from  Latin  ;  and  when,  in  his  own  Latin  compositions, 
he  wishes  to  express  it,  he  is  at  a  loss  how  to  do  it,  and  not  unfre- 
quently  from  the  construing  notion  that  a  participle  in  one  language 
must  be  a  participle  in  another,  renders  it  by  the  Latin  participle 
passive ;  a  fault  which  all  who  have  had  any  experience  in  boys' 
compositions  must  have  frequently  noticed. 

"  But  as  a  boy  advances  in  scholarship,  he  ascends  from  the  idio- 
matic translation  of  particular  expressions  to  a  similar  rendering  of 
an  entire  sentence.  He  may  be  taught  that  the  order  of  the  words 
in  the  original  is  to  be  preserved  as  nearly  as  possible  in  the  trans- 
lation ;  and  the  problem  is  how  to  effect  this  without  violating  the 
idiom  of  his  own  language.  There  are  simple  sentences,  such  as 

*  Ardeam  Rutuli  habebant,'  in  which  nothing  more  is  required  than 
to  change  the  Latin  accusative  into  the  English  nominative,  and 
the  active  verb  into  one  passive  or  neuter  :  *  Ardea  belonged  to  the 
Rutulians.'     And  in  the  same  way  the  other  objective  cases,  the 
genitive  and  the  dative,  when  they  occur  at  the  beginning  of  a 
sentence,  may  be  often  translated  by  the  nominative  in  English, 
making  a  corresponding  change  in  the  voice  of  the  verb  following. 
But  in  many  instances  also  the  nominative  expresses  so  completely 
the  principal  subject  of  the  sentence,  that  it  is  unnatural  to  put  it 
into  any  other  case  than  the  nominative  in  the  translation.     '  Om- 
nium primum  avidum  novae  libertatis  populum,  ne  postmodum  flecti 

36* 


426  APPENDIX. 

precibus  aut  donis  regiis  posset,  jurejurando  adegit  [Brutus]  nemi- 
nem  Roma  passuros  regnare.'  It  will  not  do  here  to  translate 
*  adegit'  by  a  passive  verb,  and  to  make  Brutus  the  ablative  case, 
because  Brutus  is  the  principal  subject  of  this  and  the  sentences 
preceding  and  following  it ;  the  historian  is  engaged  in  relating  his 
measures.  To  preserve,  therefore,  the  order  of  the  words,  the 
clause  *  avidum  novae  libertatis  populum'  must  be  translated  as  a 
subordinate  sentence,  by  inserting  a  conjunction  and  verb.  '  First 
of  all,  while  the  people  were  set  so  keenly  on  their  new  liberty,  to 
prevent  the  possibility  of  their  ever  being  moved  from  it  hereafter 
by  the  entreaties  or  bribes  of  the  royal  house,  Brutus  bound  them 
by  an  oath,  that  they  would  never  suffer  any  man  to  be  king  at 
Rome.'  Other  passages  are  still  more  complicated,  and  require 
greater  taste  and  command  of  language  to  express  them  properly ; 
and  such  will  often  offer  no  uninteresting  trial  of  skill,  not  to  the 
pupil  only,  but  even  to  his  instructor. 

"  Another  point  may  be  mentioned,  in  which  the  translation  of 
the  Greek  and  Roman  writers  is  most  useful  in  improving  a  boy's 
knowledge  of  his  own  language.  In  the  choice  of  his  words,  and 
in  the  style  of  his  sentences,  he  should  be  taught  to  follow  the 
analogy  required  by  the  age  and  character  of  the  writer  whom  he 
is  translating.  For  instance,  in  translating  Homer,  hardly  any 
words  should  be  employed  except  Saxon,  and  the  oldest  and  simplest 
of  those  which  are  of  French  origin ;  and  the  language  should  con- 
sist of  a  series  of  simple  propositions,  connected  with  one  another 
only  by  the  most  inartificial  conjunctions.  In  translating  the  trage- 
dians, the  words  should  be  principally  Saxon,  but  mixed  with  many 
of  French  or  foreign  origin,  like  the  language  of  Shakspeare,  and 
the  other  dramatists  of  the  reigns  of  Elizabeth  and  James  I.  The 
term  '  words  of  French  origin'  is  used  purposely,  to  denote  that 
large  portion  of  our  language  which,  although  of  Latin  derivation, 
came  to  us  immediately  from  the  French  of  our  Norman  conquer- 
ors, and  thus  became  a  part  of  the  natural  spoken  language  of  that 
mixed  people,  which  grew  out  of  the  melting  of  the  Saxon  and 
Norman  races  into  one  another.  But  these  are  carefully  to  be  dis- 
tinguished from  another  class  of  words  equally  of  Latin  derivation, 
but  which  have  been  introduced  by  learned  men  at  a  much  later 
period,  directly  from  Latin  books,  and  have  never,  properly  speak- 


APPENDIX.  42? 

ing,  formed  any  part  of  the  genuine  national  language.  These 
truly  foreign  words,  which  Johnson  used  so  largely,  are  carefully 
to  be  shunned  in  the  translation  of  poetry,  as  being  unnatural,  and 
associated  only  with  the  most  unpoetical  period  of  our  literature, 
the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

"  So  also,  in  translating  the  prose  writers  of  Greece  and  Rome, 
Herodotus  should  be  rendered  in  the  style  and  language  of  the 
Chroniclers ;  Thucydides  in  that  of  Bacon  or  Hooker,  while  De- 
mosthenes, Cicero,  Caesar,  and  Tacitus,  require  a  style  completely 
modern — the  perfection  of  the  English  language  such  as  we  now 
speak  and  write  it,  varied  only  to  suit  the  individual  differences  of 
the  different  writers,  but  in  its  range  of  words  and  in  its  idioms, 
substantially  the  same. 

"  Thus  much  has  been  said  on  the  subject  of  translation,  because 
the  practice  of  construing  has  naturally  tended  to  bring  the  exer- 
cise into  disrepute  :  and  in  the  contests  for  academical  honours  at 
both  Universities,  less  and  less  importance,  we  have  heard,  is  con- 
stantly being  attached  to  the  power  of  viva  voce  translation.  We 
do  not  wonder  at  any  contempt  that  is  shown  towards  construing, 
the  practice  being  a  mere  folly ;  but  it  is  of  some  consequence  that 
the  value  of  translating  should  be  better  understood,  and  the  exer- 
cise more  carefully  attended  to.  It  is  a  mere  chimera  to  suppose, 
as  many  do,  that  what  they  call  free  translation  is  a  convenient 
cover  for  inaccurate  scholarship.  It  can  only  be  so  through  the 
incompetence  or  carelessness  of  the  teacher.  If  the  force  of  every 
part  of  the  sentence  be  not  fully  given,  the  translation  is  so  far 
faulty;  but  idiomatic  translation,  much  more  than  literal,  is  an 
evidence  that  the  translator  does  see  the  force  of  his  original ;  and 
it  should  be  remembered  that  the  very  object  of  so  translating  is  to 
preserve  the  spirit  of  an  author,  where  it  would  be  lost  or  weakened 
by  translating  literally ;  but  where  a  literal  translation  happens  to 
be  faithful  to  the  spirit,  there  of  course  it  should  be  adopted ;  and 
any  omission  or  misrepresentation  of  any  part  of  the  meaning  of  the 
original  does  not  preserve  its  spirit,  but,  as  far  as  it  goes,  sacrifices 
it,  and  is  not  to  be  called  ' free  translation?  but  rather  '  imperfect,' 
•blundering,'  or,  in  a  word,  'bad  translation.'  " 

DR.  ARNOLD'S  Description  of  Rugby  School, 

*  Journal  of  Education?  vol.  vii.  pp.  241-5. 


428  APPENDIX. 

The  essential  difficulty  in  the  process  of  translation  has  been 
well  stated  by  Mr.  Newman,  in  the  Preface  to  his  "  Church  of  the 
Fathers:" 

"  It  should  be  considered  that  translation  in  itself  is,  after  all. 
out  a  problem,  how,  two  languages  being  given,  the  nearest  approxi- 
mation may  be  made  in  the  second  to  the  expression  of  ideas  al- 
ready conveyed  through  the  medium  of  the  first.  The  problem 
almost  starts  with  the  assumption  that  something  must  be  sacrificed 
and  the  chief  question  in,  what  is  the  least  sacrifice  ?  In  a  balance 
of  difficulties,  one  translator  will  aim  at  being  critically  correct, 
and  will  become  obscure,  cumbrous,  and  foreign  ;  another  will  aim 
at  being  English,  and  will  appear  deficient  in  scholarship.  While 
grammatical  particles  are  followed  out,  the  spirit  evaporates ;  and 
while  ease  is  secured,  new  ideas  are  intruded,  or  the  point  of  the 
original  is  lost,  or  the  drift  of  the  context  broken."  p.  viii. 

On  a  subject  of  so  much  interest  in  education,  I  may  add  a  re- 
ference to  some  judicious  '  Remarks  on  Translation'  by  Mr.  R.  H. 
Home,  in  the  third  No.  of  the  '  Classical  Museum?  Decem.,  1843. 
The  nature  of  true  and  false  translation,  is  also  examined  and  well 
exemplified,  in  an  article  on  '  German  and  English  Translators 
from  the  Greek,'  in  the  '  Foreign  Quarterly  Review?  vol.  xxxiii. 
July,  1844. 


THE  KKD 


D.  APPLETON  f  CO.,  PUBLISHERS. 


A.  DIGEST  OF  THE  LAWS,  CUSTOMS^  MANNERS  AND 

INSTITUTIONS  OF  THE  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN 

NATIONS. 

BY    THOMAS    DEW. 
Late  President  of  the  College  of  William  and  Mary. 

1  Vol.     8vo.     662  pages.     Price  $2  00. 

On  examination,  it  will  be  found  that  more  than  ordinary  labor  haa 
been  expended  upon  this  work,  and  that  the  author  has  proceeded  upon 
higher  principles,  and  has  had  higher  aims  in  view  than  historical  com- 
pilers ordinarily  propose  to  themselves.  Instead  of  being  a  mere  cata- 
logue of  events,  chronologically  arranged,  it  is  a  careful,  laborious,  and 
instructive  digest  of  the  laws,  customs,  manners,  institutions,  and  civi 
lization  of  the  ancient  and  modern  nations. 

The  department  of  modern  history  in  particular  has  been  prepared 
with  unusual  care  and  industry. 

From  JOHN  J.  OWEN,  Professor  in  New  York  Free  Academy. 

"  I  have  examined  with  much  pleasure  Prof.  Dew's  '  Digest  of  the  Laws,  Manners, 
Customs,  <fcc.,  of  Ancient  and  Modern  Nations.'  It  furnishes  a  desideratum  in  the 
study  of  history  which  I  have  long  desired  to  see.  The  manner  In  which  history  is 
generally  studied  in  our  institutions  of  learning,  is,  in  my  judgment,  very  defective. 
The  great  central  points  or  epochs  of  history  are  not  made  to  stand  out  with  sufficient 
prominence.  Events  of  minor  importance  are  made  to  embarrass  the  memory  by  the 
confused  method  of  their  presentation  to  the  mind ;  history  is  studied  by  pages  and  not 
by  subjects.  In  the  wilderness  of  events  through  which  the  student  is  groping  his  way, 
he  soon  becomes  lost  and  perplexed.  The  past  is  as  obscure  as  the  future.  His  lesson 
soon  becomes  an  irksome  task.  The  memory  Is  wearied  with  the  monotonous  task  of 
striving  to  retain  the  multitudinous  events  of  each  daily  lesson. 

"  This  evil  appears  to  be  remedied  in  a  great  degree  by  Prof.  Dew's  admirable  ar- 
rangement. Around  the  great  points  of  history  he  has  grouped  those  of  subordinate 
Importance.  Each  section  is  introduced  by  a  caption,  in  which  the  subject  is  briefly 
stated,  and  so  as  to  be  easily  remembered.  Thus  the  student  having  mastered  the  lead- 
ing  events,  will  find  little  or  no  difficulty  in  treasuring  up  the  minor  points  in  their 
order  and  connection.  I  trust  the  book  will  be  adopted  in  our  higher  institutions  of 
learning.  I  greatly  prefer  it  to  any  history  for  the  use  of  schools  which  I  have  seen." 


HISTORY    OF    GERMANY. 

BY  FREDERICK  KOHLRAUBCD. 
1  Vol.     500  pages.     8vo.     Price  $1  50. 

This  history  extends  from  the  earliest  period  to  the  present  tim« 
a.nd  haa  been  translated  from  the  latest  German  edition  by  James  D 

HftSS. 

"  We  recommend  It  strongly  to  those  of  our  readers  who  desire  a  lucid,  comprehei 
live,  and  impartial  histery  of  the  rise,  rrogress,  and  condition  of  the  Germaaio  Smplna 
—Evening  Gazette. 


D.  APPLE  TON  f  CO^  PUBLISHERS*. 


HISTORICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  QUESTIONS. 

BY  EICHAED  MAQNALL.     EEVISED  BY  MES.  LATJEENCE, 
12mo.     396  pages.     Price  $1  00. 

The  American  authoress  of  this  excellent  book  has  made  it  peca- 
aarly  well  adapted  to  the  schools  of  this  country  by  adding  to  it  a 
chapter  on  the  history  and  constitntion  of  the  United  States,  and  by 
forge  additions  on  the  elements  of  mythology,  astronomy>  architecture, 
heraldry,  <fcc.,  <fec.  This  edition  is  embellished  by  numerous  cuts,  a 
large  portion  of  the  work  is  devoted  to  judicious  questions  and  answers 
on  ancient  and  modern  history,  which  must  be  very  serviceable  to 
teachers  and  pupils. 

* -This  is  an  admirable  work  to  aid  both  teachers  and  parents  In  instructing  children 
and  youth,  and  there  is  no  work  of  the  kind  that  we  have  seen  that  is  so  well  caltulat 
ed  to '  awaken  a  spirit  of  laudable  curiosity  in  young  minds,1  and  to  satisfy  that  curiosity 
when  awakened."—  Commercial  Advertiser. 


HISTORY   OF   THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

BY  GEO.  W.  GBEENE. 
1  Vol.     12mo.     450  pages.     Price  $1  00. 

This  work  will  bo  found  to  contain  a  clear  and  satisfactory  exposi 
tion  of  the  revolutions  of  the  middle  ages,  with  such  general  views  of 
literature,  society,  and  manners,  as  are  required  to  explain  the  passage! 
from  ancient  to  modern  history. 

Instead  of  a  single  list  of  sovereigns,  the  author  has  given  ful 
genealogical  tables  which  are  much  clearer  and  infinitely  more  s»ti» 
factory. 


GENERAL  HISTORY  OF  CIVILIZATION  IN  EUROPE. 

BY  M.  GUIZOT 
1  Vol.     316  pages.     12mo.     Price  $1  00. 

This  work  embraces  a  period  from  the  fall  of  the  Roman  empire  U 
ihe  French  revolution,  and  has  been  edited  from  tho  second  Englut 
edition,  by  Prof.  C.  S.  Henry,  who  has  added  a  few  noteb.  The  whole 
work  is  made  attractive  by  the  clear  and  lively  style  of  the  author. 


JJ.  APPLE  TON  f  CO.,  PUBLISHERS. 

HISTORY    OF    ROME. 

BY  DR.  THOMAS  ARNOLD. 
Three  Volumes  in  One.     8vo.     670  pages.     $£  00 

Arnold's  History  of  Rome  is  a  well-known  standard  work,  as  fall 
»nd  accurate  as  Niebuhr,  but  much  more  readable  and  attractive ; 
more  copious  and  exact  than  Keightley  or  Schmitz,  and  more  reliablt 
than  Michelet,  it  has  assumed  a  rank  second  to  none  in  value  and  im 
portance.  Its  style  is  admirable,  and  it  is  every  where  imbued  witL 
the  truth-loving  spirit  for  which  Dr.  Arnold  was  pre-eminent.  For 
Colleges  and  Schools  this  history  is  invaluable;  and  for  private,  as  well 
AS  public  libraries,  it  is  indispensable. 


LECTURES    ON    MODERN    HISTORY. 

BY  DR.  THOMAS  ARNOLD. 
Large  12mo.     428  pages.     Price  $1  25. 

Edited  from  the  second  London  edition,  with  a  preface  and 
of  Henry  Reed,  M.  A.,  Professor  of  English  Literature  in  the  University 
of  Pennsylvania. 

"  These  lectures,  eight  in  number,  furnish  the  best  possible  introduction  to  a  philo- 
sophical study  of  modern  history.  Prof.  Reed  has  added  greatly  to  the  worth  and  in- 
terest of  the  volume,  by  appending  to  each  lecture  such  extracts  from  Dr.  Arnold'* 
other  writings  as  would  more  fully  illustrate  its  prominent  points.  The  notes  and  ftp 
pendix  which  ho  has  thus  furnished  are  exceedingly  valuable."— Evening  Post. 


MANUAL  OF  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  HISTORY. 

BY  W.  0.  TAYLOR,  LL.  D.,  M.  R.  A.  8. 

Part  I. — Containing  the  Political  History,  Geographical  Position, 
and  Social  State  of  the  Principal  Nations  of  Antiquity,  carefully  digested 
from  the  Ancient  Writers,  and  illustrated  by  the  discoveries  of  Modern 
Scholars  and  Travellers. 

Part  II. — Containing  the  Rise  and  Progress  of  the  Principal  Euro 
pean  Nations,  their  Political  History,  and  the  Changes  in  their  Sooia 
Condition ;  with  a  History  of  the  Colonies  founded  by  Europeans.  Re 
vised  by  C.  S.  Taylor,  D.  D.  8vo.  $2  50. 

It 


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PHILOSOPHY  OF  SIR  WM.  HAMILTON. 

EDITED  BY  0.  W.  WIGHT. 
1  vol.     8vo.     530  pages.     Price  $1  60. 

This  handsome  octavo  volume  is  issued  in  a  beautiful  style,  and  u 
designed  to  be  used  as  a  text-book  in  schools  and  colleges.  It  em 
braces  all  the  metaphysical  writings  of  Sir  Wm.  Hamiltcjn,  one  of  the 
n  ost  noted  philosophers  and  logicians  of  the  day,  whose  writings  de- 
serve the  attention  and  consideration  of  those  who  have  charge  of  our 
seminaries  of  learning. 

""With  the  severest  logic,  and  a  power  of  analysis  ttoat  W'woll  nigfc  matchless,  he 
unites  the  most  perspicuous  and  exact  style,  expressing  the  nicest  shades  of  thought, 
with  undevlating  accuracy.  And  his  writings  display  remarkable  erudition  as  well  as 
discrimination ;  he  shows  himself  perfectly  familiar  with  the  theories  and  arguments  of 
all  who  have  gone  before  him,  whether  in  earlier  or  later  days ;  and  while  ho  renders 
due  honor  to  each,  be  knows  no  such  thing  as  being  in  bondage  to  a  great  name."— 
Puritan  Recorder. 


HISTORY  OF  MODERN  PHILOSOPHY. 

BY  M.  VICTOR  COUSIN. 

TRANSLATED  BY  O.  W.  WIGHT. 

2  vols.  8vo.     891  pages.     Price  $3  00. 

This  is  the  ablest  and  most  popular  of  all  Cousin's  works.  It  co» 
tains  a  full  exposition  of  Eclecticism,  by  its  founder  and  ablest  sup 
porter ;  gives  a  collected  account  of  the  history  of  philosophy  from  th« 
earliest  times;  makes  a  distinct  classification  of  systems ;  affords  brief 
yet  intelligible  glimpses  into  the  interior  of  almost  every  school, 
whether  ancient  or  modern ;  and  a  detailed  analysis  of  Locke,  which 
unanswerably  refutes  a  sensualistic  theory  that  has  borne  so  many 
bitter  fruits  of  irreligion  and  atheism. 

**M.  Cousin  is  the  greatest  philosopher  of  France."— Sir  William  Hamilton. 

"  A  writer,  whose  pointed  periods  have  touched  the  chords  of  modern  society,  and 
thrilled  through  the  minds  of  thousands  in  almost  every  quarter  of  the  civilized  world." 
—JEdtnDurffh  Review. 

"  As  regards  that  part  of  this  work— its  translation— which  has  fallen  to  Mr.  Wight, 
we  must  say  that  it  has  the  air  of  being  well  performed.  We  have  not  the  original  at 
hand  to  compare  the  two,  but  the  flowing  style  of  the  English  version  demonstrates  thf 
translator's  familiarity  with  the  foreign  language."—  Western  Lit.  Gazette. 

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